The James A. Garfield Memorial is the final resting place of assassinated President

James A. Garfield James Abram Garfield (November 19, 1831 – September 19, 1881) was the 20th president of the United States, serving from March 1881 until his death in September that year after being shot two months earlier. A preacher, lawyer, and Civi ...

, located in

Lake View Cemetery Lake View Cemetery is a Private property, privately owned, Nonprofit organization, nonprofit Rural cemetery, garden cemetery located in the cities of Cleveland, Cleveland Heights, Ohio, Cleveland Heights, and East Cleveland, Ohio, East Cleveland ...

Cleveland Cleveland is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located along the southern shore of Lake Erie, it is situated across the Canada–U.S. maritime border and approximately west of the Ohio-Pennsylvania st ...

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

. The memorial, which began construction in October 1885 and was dedicated on May 30, 1890, exhibits a combination of

Byzantine The Byzantine Empire, also known as the Eastern Roman Empire, was the continuation of the Roman Empire centred on Constantinople during late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Having survived the events that caused the fall of the Western Roman E ...

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, a Germanic people **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Gothic alphabet, an alphabet used to write the Gothic language ** Gothic ( ...

, and

Romanesque Revival Romanesque Revival (or Neo-Romanesque) is a style of building employed beginning in the mid-19th century inspired by the 11th- and 12th-century Romanesque architecture. Unlike the historic Romanesque style, Romanesque Revival buildings tended t ...

architectural styles. Garfield, former First Lady

Lucretia Garfield Lucretia Garfield ( Rudolph; April 19, 1832 – March 14, 1918) was the first lady of the United States from March to September 1881, as the wife of James A. Garfield, the 20th president of the United States. Born in Garrettsville, Ohio, Gar ...

, and two other members of the Garfield family are entombed in the crypt level of the monument. The monument was added to the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1973.

Site selection

President James A. Garfield, a resident of nearby

Mentor, Ohio Mentor ( ) is the largest city in Lake County, Ohio, United States. The population was 47,450 at the 2020 census. It is part of the Cleveland metropolitan area. Mentor was first settled in 1797. In 1876, James A. Garfield purchased a home in ...

, was shot in Washington, D.C., on July 2, 1881. He died on September 19, 1881. Garfield himself had expressed the wish to be buried at Lake View Cemetery, and the cemetery offered a burial site free of charge to his widow,

. Mrs. Garfield agreed to bury her husband at Lake View. Even before Garfield's funeral, plans were laid by his friends and admirers for a grand tomb to be erected at a high point in the cemetery. The Garfield Memorial Committee selected the highest point in the cemetery in June 1883 for the president's final resting place. Lake View Cemetery built a road around the memorial in early 1885 and began work on cutting a road from the Euclid Gate to the memorial site later that fall. The cemetery also began work on making improvements to the landscape, water, and drainage around the site.

Design and construction

The tomb was designed by architect George Keller in the

, and

styles. All the stone for the monument came from the quarries of the Cleveland Stone Company, and was quarried locally. The exterior reliefs, which depict scenes from Garfield's life, were done by

Caspar Buberl Caspar Buberl (1834 – August 22, 1899) was an American sculptor. He is best known for his American Civil War, Civil War monuments, for the terra cotta relief panels on the James A. Garfield Memorial, Garfield Memorial in Cleveland, Ohio (d ...

. Its cost, $135,000 ($ in dollars), was funded entirely through private donations. Part of the memorial's funding came from pennies sent in by children throughout the country. The round tower is in diameter and high. Around the exterior of the balcony are five terra cotta panels with over 110 life size figures depicting Garfield's life and death. The interior features

stained glass Stained glass refers to coloured glass as a material or art and architectural works created from it. Although it is traditionally made in flat panels and used as windows, the creations of modern stained glass artists also include three-dimensio ...

windows and window like panes representing the original 13 colonies, plus the state of Ohio, along with panels depicting War and Peace;

mosaic A mosaic () is a pattern or image made of small regular or irregular pieces of colored stone, glass or ceramic, held in place by plaster/Mortar (masonry), mortar, and covering a surface. Mosaics are often used as floor and wall decoration, and ...

s; deep red granite columns; and a -tall white

Carrara marble Carrara marble, or Luna marble (''marmor lunense'') to the Romans, is a type of white or blue-grey marble popular for use in sculpture and building decor. It has been quarried since Roman times in the mountains just outside the city of Carrara ...

statue of President Garfield by

Alexander Doyle Alexander Doyle (1857–1922) was an American sculptor. Doyle was born in Steubenville, Ohio, and spent his youth in Louisville (Kentucky) and St. Louis (Missouri) before going to Italy to study sculpture in Bergamo, Rome, and Florence, studying ...

. An

observation deck An observation deck, observation platform, or viewing platform is an elevated sightseeing platform usually situated upon a tall architectural structure, such as a skyscraper or observation tower. Observation decks are sometimes enclosed from we ...

provides views of

downtown Cleveland Downtown Cleveland is the central business district of Cleveland, Ohio, United States. The economic and cultural center of the city and the Cleveland metropolitan area, it is Cleveland's oldest district, with its Public Square, Cleveland, Publi ...

and

Lake Erie Lake Erie ( ) is the fourth-largest lake by surface area of the five Great Lakes in North America and the eleventh-largest globally. It is the southernmost, shallowest, and smallest by volume of the Great Lakes and also has the shortest avera ...

. Construction on the memorial began on October 6, 1885, and it was dedicated on May 30, 1890. The caskets of the President and

lie in a crypt on full display beneath the memorial, along with the ashes of their daughter (Mary "Mollie" Garfield Stanley-Brown 867–1947 and son-in-law Joseph Stanley Brown. Lucretia Garfield died on March 13, 1918, and was interred in the Garfield Memorial on March 21.

Operational history

Since the Garfield Memorial was private, the committee overseeing its operation charged an entry fee of 10 cents per person to defray its maintenance costs. In late October 1923, the Garfield National Monument Association turned the Garfield Memorial over to Lake View Cemetery. Most of the Monument Association's members had died, and its charter did not permit for a self-perpetuating board. After accepting

title A title is one or more words used before or after a person's name, in certain contexts. It may signify their generation, official position, military rank, professional or academic qualification, or nobility. In some languages, titles may be ins ...

to the memorial and its land, Lake View Cemetery immediately ended the practice of charging a 10 cent ($ in dollars) admission fee to the memorial. Lake View also began cleaning, repairing, and rehabilitating the memorial. Lake View Cemetery spent $5 million in 2016 and 2017 conserving, repairing, and upgrading the memorial's structural elements. This included reinforcing beams and columns in the basement. In 2019, the cemetery began a multi-million-dollar project to clean the exterior and repoint any damaged or missing mortar. It is the first time in the memorial's history that the exterior has been cleaned. The memorial closes every winter on November 19 (President Garfield's birthday) and reopens in April.

References

;Notes ;Citations

Bibliography

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External links

Historic images from the Cleveland Memory Project
{{National Register of Historic Places 1890 sculptures Garfield, James Abram Buildings and structures in Cleveland George Keller buildings Gothic Revival architecture in Ohio Marble sculptures in the United States Mausoleums on the National Register of Historic Places Monuments and memorials on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio Sculptures of men in Ohio Statues in Ohio Garfield, James National Register of Historic Places in Cleveland, Ohio

Garfield ''Garfield'' is an American comic strip created by Jim Davis (cartoonist), Jim Davis. Originally published locally as ''Jon'' in 1976 (later changed to ''Garfield'' in 1977), then in nationwide Print syndication, syndication from 1978, it chro ...