The bird population balloons every spring and fall at Green Lawn Cemetery. Known as one of the top birding spots in the Midwest, GLC attracts 214 species of birds. Blue birds winter here. Thrushes and warblers are plentiful. Other birds include: the woodpecker, great horned owl and bats. Some birds are attracted to the cemetery’s pond which is stocked with bullhead minnows. GLC was designated as an important bird area in 1999. The Ohio Audubon Society helps to caretake the grounds.
Green Lawn Cemetery, on the city’s short south side, is the final resting place of five Ohio governors, five Medal of Honor recipients, several U.S. presidential families, many of Columbus’ founding families, and over six thousand veterans who fill seven different military sections.
There are ten works of art within GLC as identified by the Smithsonian. The cemetery itself was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2024. Part of the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie ‘Aftermath’ in 2017 was filmed in Columbus, including John Glenn International Airport and Green Lawn Cemetery.
In 1848, the city of Columbus hired Harold Daniels to design a cemetery on eighty three acres. Columbus just so happened to be experiencing a deadly Cholera outbreak at the time. The trend for cemeteries was to go rural, which is exactly where the cemetery sat. That was then. The grand opening of Green Lawn Cemetery was on July 9, 1849, at a spot on the grounds called Consecration Grove.
French-born Stanislaus Roy was a sergeant in the U.S. 7th Cavalry and fought in the Battle of Little Bighorn in Montana. He earned the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery, risking his life to bring water to the wounded while under great enemy fire on June 25, 1876.
Roy died on Feb 10, 1913, in Columbus Ohio and was buried in Green Lawn Cemetery. Unfortunately, his name was misspelled on his headstone for eighty years, listing his last name first. It was finally discovered in the 1990s.
Simon Lazurus was an entrepreneurial Jewish immigrant who came to Columbus from Bavaria, fleeing anti-Semitism in the 1840s. He opened a one-room men’s clothing store on South High Street and grew his business. So good was the foundation he laid, that Lazurus was the city’s most popular department store for almost its entire 150 year history, finally closing for good in 2004.
Lincoln Goodale was one of Columbus’ first millionaires. His mother’s remains were moved from Franklinton Cemetery to Green Lawn. Her marker – dated 1810 – is the cemetery’s oldest. No one knows where Lincoln is buried.
Lucas Sullivant, the first to arrive in central Ohio in 1795 and Franklinton founder, moved family members to Green Lawn. Their remains were moved from the North Graveyard downtown because of the expanding city. Body parts continue to be found there. Green Lawn is expecting another 1400 remains after the final dig in 2026.
Joseph Sullivant (son of Lucas) moved Arthur Boke (black adopted son) to Green Lawn. In 1852, Green Lawn did not sell lots to black families. James Poindexter wrote an open letter to the board asking them to allow black families in. Segregation at Green Lawn, unfortunately, lasted until the 1930s.
The Hayden Mausoleum is the single biggest family mausoleum in Columbus. Peter Hayden started out securing military manufacturing contracts and then founded the Hayden Bank in 1866. Frank Packard designed the mausoleum for twelve family members, but it is in disrepair and currently not open to the public. Repair costs are estimated at $2.5 million.
Early in the twentieth century, a beautiful classic Roman style chapel with a marble exterior, stained glass windows and a leaded glass dome was designed by Columbus architect Frank Packard. Two huge mosaic murals were installed by Tiffany’s of New York. The chapel was completed and dedicated by Dr. Washington Gladden on Nov 11, 1902.
The glass dome, of what is now called the Huntington Chapel, was completely restored in 2025, thanks to a $1 million Covid surplus grant from the state of Ohio.
Four state champion trees are in the cemetery – one being the largest Douglas spruce. Also, there are buckeye, basswood, oak, red bud, dogwood, sassafras, ash, black maple, and American persimmons trees.
The Green Lawn director, at one time, lived on site to prevent grave robbers. Today, Green Lawn is the only cemetery in Ohio that has its own police department after experiencing heavy vandalism in 2015.
Among the Columbus luminaries buried at Green Lawn are: Gordon Battelle (founder of Battelle Institute), architect Frank Packard, magician Howard Thurston, WWI fighting ace Eddie Rickenbacker and his dad, Reverend Washington Gladden, author & humorist James Thurber, Underground Railroad conductor and Reverend James Poindexter, Ohio Governor James Rhodes, industrialist Samuel Prescott Bush, bank founder PW Huntington, and early Columbus titans William G Deshler and John G Deshler.
The gazebo is the center gathering place at Green Lawn. In 2025 it hosted fundraisers for both the Kelton House and Thurber House. GLC has grown to 325 acres with 160,000 interments. It is Ohio’s second largest cemetery with 27 miles of road.
Green Lawn Cemetery is a Columbus jewel. It sits within walking distance of the confluence of three major highways. As we, the living, race by to get to our next big thing, the city’s past lay in peace and beauty while the blue birds sing, the warblers dance and the woodpeckers knock.
Sources: www.greenlawncemetery.org; ‘Green Lawn Cemetery’, Columbus Historical Society, May, 2022; Green Lawn Cemetery tour, April 27, 2025; 101 Things you didn’t know about Columbus Ohio by Horace Martin Woodhouse, 2010; Columbus Vignettes IV by Bill Arter; Stories of Sacrifice, Stanislaus Roy, Congressional Medal of Honor Society, www.cmohs.org; Hall of Valor by Military Times, Stanislaus Roy, www.valor.militarytimes.com; Army sergeant Stanislaus Roy’s gravesite in Green Lawn Cemetery by Erica Thompson, Oct 24, 2018, Columbus Monthly, www.columbusmonthly.com; Fort Abraham Lincoln State Park, Aug 21, 2025, www.facebook.com; Peter Hayden Section 65, www.teachingcolumbus.org; The Fisherman of Green Lawn by Eric Lyttle, Mar 11, 2019, www.columbusmonthly.com; www.findagrave.com; Featured picture is the Green Lawn pond, a former quarry, that contributes to its inclusion in being an Audubon important bird area.