The City Cemetery began with the sale of five acres by Orin Hamlin to the Trustees of the Town of Peoria for $350 in 1839. The first lots of the Public Graveyard were sold in 1842 and the final interment took place in 1875. Officially the cemetery was closed in 1886 for public health reasons.

Actual numbers of those buried in the City Cemetery are unknown because the burial records have been lost, but there have been 388 documented reinterrements between 1857 and 1902 in the Springdale Cemetery of Peoria from the City Cemetery. Some reinterrements to other area cemeteries may have occurred, but at present none are known.

Currently the cemetery's site contains a single building, an historical landmark designated Carnegie Library owned by the Peoria Public Library that opened in 1911, and a city park owned by the City of Peoria.

Source: Peoria Public Library web site, June 2009.

City Cemetery. First Know as Public Graveyard.
1839-1875.
Officially Closed in 1886. Only partially moved.
Located on N.E. cor. of N.W. 1/4 sect. 17 T8N R8E of the 4th PM (1842)

The City Cemetery began with the sale of five acres by Orin Hamlin to the Trustees of the Town of Peoria for $350 in 1839. The first lots of the Public Graveyard were sold in 1842 and the final interment took place in 1875. It was in 1886 that the cemetery was officially closed for reasons of public health.

Actual numbers of those buried in the City Cemetery are unknown because the burial records have been lost, but there have been 388 documented reinterments between 1857 and 1902 in the Springdale Cemetery of Peoria from the City Cemetery. Some reinterments to other area cemeteries may have occurred, but at present none are known.

Currently the cemetery's site contains a single building, the Peoria Public Library, a designated historical landmark Carnegie Library that opened in 1911. There is also a city park on the site owned by the City of Peoria.

Historians are still seeking the original burial records from this cemetery. Apparently, hundreds of people were buried in the cemetery grounds, framed by Lincoln Avenue and Louisa, Helen and George streets, but records only document 321 removals and reinterments at Springdale Cemetery.
The Peoria Public Library's Lincoln branch was built in 1910 with a grant from Andrew Carnegie. The site once hosted one of Peoria's first farms, and the first American woman in Peoria lived on the property.

Abner Eads, one of Peoria's Pioneers, on August 23, 1821 purchased a quarter section of land for a home site from M. Duncan, who had acquired it as a government grant. Part of it was sold April 3, 1833 to O. Hamlin who on January 25, 1835 sold to G.C. Dana, Administrator for the estate of D.P. Dana, five acres of the property, now bounded by Lincoln, Helen and Lincoln Place, the present site of Lincoln Park and Peoria Branch Library.

For the sum of $350.00. G.C. Dana sold the five acres Nov. 5, 1839 to the trustees of the town of Peoria for the purpose of "Public Graveyard". However, a small tract retained by G.C. Dana was located on the Lincoln Street side about the location where Pope Street begins. This G.C. Dana tract, according to the deed filed is rectangular and measured three and one-half rods on Lincoln Avenue, then south five rods. The northeast corner of this small section is thirteen and one-half rods from the northeast corner of the cemetery.

The memorial marker erected by the D.A.R. stands northwest of the library building on lot 5 of block 7 of the cemetery plat. The incription plaque that used to be on it read:
THE BOULDER PLACED
IN MEMORY OF MRS. ABNER EADS
FIRST AMERICAN WOMAN IN PEORIA 1819
ERECTED 1925 BY PEORIA CHAPTER D.A.R. COMMEMORATING
THE 100TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDING OF PEORIA COUNTY

According to one article from 1989, the Rebecca Eads commemorative plaque was at that time located in the headquarters office of the Peoria Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Probably one of the most outstanding burials in this old cemetery was that of the seventh governor of Illinois, Thomas Ford. He was later removed to Springdale. A beautiful tombstone was erected by the commonwealth of Illinois. The 18 foot high monument was shown in the Peoria Weekly Democratic Press of September 7, 1858, stating that J. Jewell was the sculptor. The stone was blown down and broken during the cyclone which visited Peoria May 13, 1858.