03/07/2023
Did you know!?!?
In 1849, Simon McClure donated three acres of land to Henry Shoup to build a church and burial ground. A one-story church was erected on that plot of land the same year. The burial ground would soon be come to known as Greencastle Cemetery. Greencastle Cemetery's name comes from the "Greencastle Circuit," the United Brethren circuit to which the original church belonged. The cemetery is located on the east side of South Broadway Street, between Miami Chapel Road and Noble Avenue, in Dayton.
Old Greencastle Cemetery is most likely the oldest cemetery in Dayton. The earliest dated tombstone found in the cemetery was inscribed in 1817. Even before the church was erected, the land may have been used as a family graveyard. However, few of the graveyard's records prior to 1913 exist as many of the cemetery's records, graves, and gravestones were destroyed during the 1913 Dayton flood.
Old Greencastle Cemetery is the resting place of Otis and Ida Wright, brother and sister of the famous Orville and Wilbur Wright. Also within the cemetery are buried Civil War soldiers and a special section reserved for children from the Montgomery County Ohio Children's Home, which was open from 1867-1928.
In 1944, a new cemetery was opened called New Greencastle Cemetery. New Greencastle Cemetery is located at 2045 Nicholas Road in Dayton, Ohio. Thus, Old Greencastle Cemetery became inactive except for those who already had plots but continued to have transactions of the trading of cemetery plots well beyond the 1940s. Meanwhile, New Greencastle Cemetery continues to be an active cemetery today.
Both cemeteries are located in areas that were formerly part of Harrison Township, before those locations were absorbed into the City of Dayton.
