Wallaceville Cemetery Maintenance Fund

Wallaceville Cemetery is located on route 428, about 3.5 miles south of Diamond, Pennsylvania. The cemetery is unusual because no paper deeds for the cemetery land have been discovered. County assessment records show the land as set aside for a public burial ground. 

The first grave in the cemetery was dug for Samuel Hawthorn on June 12, 1851. 

To set a time perspective, in 1851, George Washington had not yet been inaugurated as the nation’s first president. There are approximately 250 people buried in this cemetery. The latest burial was in 2019. The cemetery is currently near capacity.

From its beginning, it has been a free burial cemetery. That means there is no, and has never been, a fee to be buried there. You cannot “purchase” or “reserve” plots. The negative side of this arrangement results in very little funding for perpetual care. Furthermore, as time passes, there are fewer and fewer living relatives to donate or help care for the cemetery. There is a yearly average of eight donors. It costs $100 for each mowing.

There has always been some resident(s) of Wallaceville that has voluntarily taken care of the cemetery. There have been occasional major clean-up and restoration events, the latest in 1982. Mowing, procuring donations, and maintenance of a bank account has always been arranged by an acting liaison.

Historical records show that 20 American Veterans are buried in the Wallaceville Cemetery. The local county Veteran’s Affairs Office has a history of 14. The veteran’s office in the past gave $1.00 (one dollar) per veteran for grave upkeep. 

Leonidas (Lanzo) Jackson is a veteran who did not have a headstone.  Volunteers recognized his burial location with a flag every year. Pennsylvania State Archives has him listed as a Civil War Veteran and that he enlisted into Union service on September 22, 1862, in Pittsburgh, Pa., at the age of 21. Because his information is incomplete, the county Veteran’s Affairs Office has not cooperated in getting him a replacement stone. Thanks to donors to this GoFundMe site Leonidas now has a stone!!

GoFundMe money will be applied to repairing stones (three restored in 2022; see update photos) and perpetual maintenance of the Wallaceville Cemetery.

                                                                               Thank You

                                         to those who have donated in response to

                                      this year's letter and further thanks to those

                                                  who may donate through this site.