Chippiannock Cemetery
Chippiannock Cemetery is located on 12th Street and 31st Avenue in Rock Island, Illinois. The word “Chippiannock” is a Native American term which means “place of the dead”.
History
In 1855 Chippiannock's founders purchased 62 acres and secured the services of noted landscape architect Almerin Hotchkiss to design a cemetery patterned in the Rural Cemetery style of Mt. Auburn in Massachusetts (America's first garden-style cemetery). Almerin Hotchkiss also designed Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn and Bellefontaine Cemetery in St. Louis.
The landscape design and spectacular examples of art and architecture earned the cemetery National Register status in May 1994. The cemetery was the third cemetery in Illinois to receive this recognition.
The cemetery includes impressive monuments by Alexander Stirling Calder and Paul de Vigne.
It was also an important location in Max Allan Collins' graphic novel, Road to Perdition, which was the basis for the Oscar-awarded film of the same name which starred Tom Hanks and Paul Newman.
Notable Chippiannock burials
- Minnie Potter (1865–1936), president and CEO of the Argus, a daily newspaper
Further reading
- “150 Years of Epitaphs at Chippiannock Cemetery”. Rock Island, Ill.: Chippiannock Cemetery Heritage Foundation, ©2006.
- “Passages: A Collection of Personal Histories of Chippiannock Cemetery”. Bettendorf, Iowa: Razor Edge Press, ©2006.
External links