Oak Hill Cemetery, Janesville

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Oak Hill seems to be a common cemetery name. Sometimes I think there are only about a dozen cemetery names all together, at least for large cemeteries.

A quick Google search reveals boneyards called Oak Hill in Washington, D.C.; Cincinnati; San Jose; Clear Lake, Illinois; Bramwell, West Virginia; Griffin, Georgia; Evansville, Indiana; Lawrence, Kansas; and Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, where the creator of Dungeons & Dragons, one Ernest Gary Gygax, reposes.

And more. One of which is the municipal Oak Hill Cemetery in Janesville, Wisconsin.Oak Hill Cemetery, Janesville

It’s a sizable cemetery, about 85 acres, with 24,000 or so permanent residents. I took a look fairly early on Sunday, July 2. The grounds aren’t quite hilly, but they do slope a good bit, with old trees — and some oaks — and a good variety of standing stones.Oak Hill Cemetery, Janesville Oak Hill Cemetery, Janesville Oak Hill Cemetery, Janesville Oak Hill Cemetery, Janesville

Some older stones, as befitting a place founded in 1851. Many of them have that headstone tilt that comes with time.Oak Hill Cemetery, Janesville Oak Hill Cemetery, Janesville Oak Hill Cemetery, Janesville

A well-placed veterans’ section.Oak Hill Cemetery, Janesville

And a handsome chapel.Oak Hill Cemetery, Janesville

Recently restored, I’ve read, the chapel dates from 1899. The cemetery was already well established by then as a more obscure, but nevertheless good example of a 19th-century rural cemetery.