Union Baptist Cemetery Tour
Union Baptist Cemetery was established in 1865 by Union Baptist Church, the oldest African American Baptist church in Cincinnati. This cemetery is the resting place of Underground Railroad conductors, artists, writers, musicians, physicians, business leaders, politicians, Civil Rights workers, and many military veterans, including approximately 150 veterans of the Civil War.
Newt Allen Jr., a Negro Leagues baseball legend
Early LifeNewt Allen Jr. was born May 19, 1901, in Austin, Texas . His parents were Newton and Rose (Baker) Allen. After the death of his father, his mother Rose picked up and moved to Cincinnati, Ohio with four children. A short time later Newt visited his aunt Ophelia in Kansas City. His aunt had…
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Gravesite of T. Spencer Finley
Manager of the Lincoln and Lyceum Theaters
Before coming to Cincinnati, T. Spencer Finley was a successful actor, comedian, and producer in Washington, DC, where by 1910 he had “full charge of the stage management” at the Hiawatha Theater.
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Gravesite of Dr. Norval C. Vaughan
Physician who invented a system of personal armor
As a physician, Norval C. Vaughan had seen the effects of stab wounds and gunshot wounds, and he wanted to do something to help before a doctor was needed. So in 1899, he invented an unusual system of personal armor.
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Gravesite of Susan Webb Tinsley
African American socialite and Underground Railroad agent
In the pre-Civil War era, Susan Webb Tinsley was the queen of Black society in Cincinnati. She and her husband entertained lavishly at their home on Seventh Street. Susan Tinsley was also an agent on the Underground Railroad.
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Gravesite of Reverend David Leroy Nickens
First African American Baptist minister to be ordained in Ohio
David Leroy Nickens was born into slavery in Virginia in 1794. By 1806, he and his parents had moved to Chillicothe, Ohio. In 1824, Nickens was ordained as a minister, and he is believed to have been the first African American Baptist minister ordained in Ohio.
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Gravesite of Luther and Mattie Brooks
A police officer killed in the line of duty, and his spouse
Patrol Officer Luther Brooks was the victim of an accidental shooting. He was crawling through a tunnel at the foot of Eighth Street, searching for some tramps who had been stealing from freight cars. Brooks’ own gun slipped from its holster. When the gun hit the ground, it went off.
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Gravesite of John Samples
Jockey who rode the horse “Longfellow”
John Samples was born in Kentucky around 1860 and grew up around horseracing. He became a jockey and went to work for horse breeder John Harper at Midway, Kentucky. There, Samples began riding a horse named Longfellow.
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Gravesite of Dr. Consuelo Clark-Stewart
Pioneering physician with a tragic personal story
Consuelo Clark was born in Cincinnati in 1861. When he was 23, she graduated from the Boston University School of Medicine. She returned to Cincinnati and became the first African American woman licensed to practice medicine in Ohio.
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Gravesite of Charles Howard
Transgender man who died in 1948
When Charles Howard came to Cincinnati around 1920, he was already well up in years. He worked as a manual laborer. He lived in a small room in the West End. When he died, in 1948, he was probably in his nineties, though some people thought he was older.
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Gravesite of Isaac Craft
Inventor who improved steam engines
Craft could design a complex valve, but he had never been taught to read or write. So Craft got an attorney to help him with the patent application, which Craft signed with his mark.
This is Isaac Craft’s only known patent, but it was not his only patentable idea. In 1867, two years prior to this…
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Gravesite of Bishop Mary Bell Mack
Founder of a Spiritualist church
In 1918, Mary Bell Mack founded the Spiritualist Church of the Soul. At this time, the word “spiritualist” had a specific meaning. It meant that this church conducted seances in which mediums attempted to communicate with the dead.
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Gravesite of Myron "Tiny" Bradshaw
Rhythm-and-blues bandleader, singer, pianist, and composer
“Tiny” Bradshaw was an outstanding jazz and rhythm & blues musician. Born in 1907 or 1908, he became known as a bandleader, singer, pianist, and composer. He worked extensively with King Records.
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Gravesite of Powhatan Beaty
Recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor
There are more than 120 Black Civil War Soldiers buried in Union Baptist Cemetery. The best-known of them is Powhatan Beaty, who was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor in 1865 for heroism at the Battle of Chaffin’s farm in Virginia.
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Gravesite of Samuel D. Holland
The most elegant monument in Union Baptist Cemetery
There are perhaps 20,000 burials in Union Baptist Cemetery, including many of the most prominent members of Black society in Cincinnati, and the most elegant monument is for someone who was neither famous nor powerful, but much loved. This is the monument for Samuel D. Holland.
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Gravesite of Robert Harlan
Larger-than-life politician
Robert James Harlan was born into slavery but was emancipated in 1848. He moved out to California in the Gold Rush and quickly became wealthy, either by running a store, or by gambling, or both.
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Gravesite of Wallace "Bud" Smith
Lightweight Boxing Champion of the World
In 1955, when “Bud” Smith won the title of lightweight boxing champion of the world, a reporter asked him what that felt like. “It feels,” Smith said, “like the whole United States.”
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Gravesite of Adeline McMicken Rollins
Mixed-race daughter of Charles McMicken, who endowed the University of Cincinnati
Adeline McMicken Rollins was born around 1811. Her mother was an enslaved woman who lived on a plantation at St. Francisville, Louisiana. Her father was the plantation-owner, Charles McMicken, who also endowed the University of Cincinnati.
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Gravesite of the Fossett Family
A remarkable family journey from slavery to freedom.
This gravestone in Union Baptist Cemetery marks the burial location of four remarkable individuals: Edith Hern Fossett, her husband Joseph, their son Peter Farley Fossett, and Peter’s spouse Sarah Mayrant Walker Fossett.
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