Ashland Cemetery's entrance arch on East Main Street Photograph by Terry Skibby

Prior to the founding of Ashland Cemetery, area families buried their dead on the gentle rises and knolls of individual farms. Like many other pioneer cemeteries, it began as a family burial ground on a donation land claim and expanded within distinct boundaries over the years. Burial dates in Ashland Cemetery range from 1860 (predating the official graveyard platting in 1880) to the present. Wooded and grassy in character, the cemetery is surrounded by the city on all sides, with an entrance arch on East Main Street. Grave markers are largely vertical and represent a wide range of styles, using Vermont and Italian marble as well as locally quarried marble and granite. The variety of monument types and embellishment is due in part to the skills of master carvers James and Ann Hill Russell, who worked in Ashland for more than 50 years (1865-1915).

Historic photograph of Ashland Cemetery, c.1905, and an image c.1900 of one of the marble works in Ashland Courtesy of The Terry Skibby Collection and National Register collection

Among significant Russell monuments are those marking the Thomas Smith, J. C. Tolman, Oscar and Lucinda Ganiard, and Wagner children's graves. Typical ornamentation of the period includes fraternal symbols, garlands and single flowers, egg-and-dart detail, and clasped hands. Noteworthy burials include those of Lindsay Applegate (one of the blazers of the Southern Emigrant Route to western Oregon) and Abel Helman, pioneer settler on whose land Ashland was developed. Ashland Cemetery retains its original character; the remaining trees substantially reflect the land's features at the time the cemetery was established and provide a rare enclave of native vegetation within the town boundaries. The cemetery provides a link between the early settlers and the period of development that occurred following the railroad's arrival in 1884.

Ashland Cemetery, located on 750 East Main St., is open to the public during daylight hours.