The Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery on Seattle, Washington's Capitol Hill is a cemetery situated just north of Lake View Cemetery on the hill's northern slope, on E. Howe Street between 12th and Everett Avenues E.
It was established in 1895 by Seattle's five Grand Army of the Republic posts (Stevens Post #1, Miller Post #31, Cushing Post #56, Saxton Post #103, and Green Lake #112) on land donated by Huldah and David Kaufman, two of the first Jews in Seattle, having arrived there in 1869. The cemetery was maintained by the G.A.R. posts until 1922, at which point the property exclusive of the 526 gravesites was transferred to the city of Seattle, the gravesites were transferred to the Stevens Post, and the neighboring Lake View Cemetery was hired to maintain the grounds.
The cemetery went into decline over the following decades, however, because of confusion over land title, the failure in 1939 to secure a WPA project, the imposition during World War II of the Coast Artillery on the grounds, and so on. In 1960 an attempt was made to transfer maintenance to the Veterans Administration, either in place or by moving the graves to Fort Lawton in Magnolia, now Discovery Park, but the VA was unable to spend money on cemeteries owned by others, and the graves were never moved. The land surrounding the graves came under the jurisdiction of Seattle's Department of Parks and Recreation.
In 1996, the parks department proposed that the park become an off-leash dog-run; in response to this, the Friends of the GAR Cemetery Park was formed the next year. They now staff monthly work parties, are involved in headstone replacement, and perform daily flag raising.
Famous quotes containing the words grand, army, republic and/or cemetery:
“It enhances our sense of the grand security and serenity of nature to observe the still undisturbed economy and content of the fishes of this century, their happiness a regular fruit of the summer.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I have been up to see the Congress and they do not seem to be able to do anything except to eat peanuts and chew tobacco, while my army is starving.”
—Robert E. Lee (1807–1870)
“Royalty is a government in which the attention of the nation is concentrated on one person doing interesting actions. A Republic is a government in which that attention is divided between many, who are all doing uninteresting actions. Accordingly, so long as the human heart is strong and the human reason weak, Royalty will be strong because it appeals to diffused feeling, and Republics weak because they appeal to the understanding.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“The cemetery of the victims of human cruelty in our century is extended to include yet another vast cemetery, that of the unborn.”
—John Paul II (Karol Wojtyla)