First Superintendents, Purchase of Crown Hill Property, and the First Burial
The board contracted with John Chislett, a landscape architect from Pittsburgh, to design the cemetery shortly after it purchased 274 acres of land for $51,000. The following spring, his son Frederick Chislett supervised the development of seven burial sections and remained the cemetery’s first supervisor for the next thirty years, after which his own son, also named John, succeeded him. Lucy Ann Seaton became the first interment on June 2, 1864, one day following the cemetery’s dedication. Additional acreage was added to Crown Hill, the last being purchased in 1911. Today the cemetery includes 555 acres, with its southern boundary at 32nd Street and the northern limit at 42nd Street. The western border is Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Street and Michigan Road, with both Clarendon Road and Boulevard Place on the east.