Photo requests can not be fulfilled.

In 1881, the City of Columbus purchased a 30-acre tract of land at the corner of Kingston Ave. and Chillicothe Pike, in Hamilton Township, to be operated as the "Franklin County Pest House Cemetery," (noted in court documents as "Pest House" or "County Graveyard" [1872 and later]), a burial ground for people with communicable diseases who were unable to buy a plot in one of the church or private cemeteries.

Only about one half-acre of the tract was ever used because local residents were reluctant to purchase lots there, and because Franklin County opened its last "poor house," the Franklin County Infirmary, only a few miles away in 1883. The Infirmary had its own cemetery, which limited the need for the County Pest House Cemetery. Nevertheless, Franklin County Probate Court records indicate the land was occasionally used for its designated purpose until 1903, if not later, and became the primary repository for local smallpox victims. [Historical documents claim the cemetery was closed in 1893; however, court records prove otherwise.]

Due to its history, the city was unable to sell the Pest House Cemetery property until 1938, by which time the land was so overgrown that no evidence remained of its former use. There was never an organized attempt to remove the burials to another location, so most are thought to remain where they were originally placed.

The memorials entered here were created from Franklin County Probate Court death records where the burial notation specified "pest house," after determining no other memorial or notation of burial existed for the deceased person.

Note: References to burials in the "city graveyard" after Columbus' North and East Graveyards were removed have been omitted, as they appear to refer to the Columbus City South Cemetery (defunct) on an adjacent plot of land.

The cemetery was located in Hamilton Township, Franklin County, Ohio, and is # 3497 (County Pest House Cemetery) in "Ohio Cemeteries 1803-2003", compiled by the Ohio Genealogical Society.