his cemetery

'C' is for cemetery

Akron Rural Cemetery began in 1839. Pharmacist, Dr. Jedediah Commins' son, Augustus, died in 1837.  Akron's burial ground was subject to flood. He kept the corpse in a cask of alcohol. In 1838, Commins went to Boston to see Mount Auburn Cemetery, which was the nation's first 'rural cemetery'. 'Cemetery' was a recent term for burial grounds and graveyards. It becames the model for American public parks and monuments.  He was impressed, other people in Akron were in favor of a new cemetery. Commins wrote a charter which the state legislature approved. Akron Rural Cemetery Association (later Glendale Cemetery) was the third chartered cemetery in the country.

The first of many mausoleums in the cemetery was his family's, built in 1860. Commins died in 1867.