
Grove Hill Cemetery, Oil City’s central city graveyard, was formally dedicated on June 22, 1871.
It took only a matter of days until many grave plots were filled.
Even as it opened, it immediately became the burial grounds for numerous city residents whose remains were exhumed from several small cemeteries located elsewhere in the city. Joining that first group of interred city residents were others whose graves had been found as streets and buildings were being constructed in the newly incorporated City of Oil City.
The Grove Hill Cemetery project began when a group of Oil City women publicly lobbied to establish a large and public cemetery in the fall of 1870. Money was raised to buy a 9.5 acre lot, at a cost of $150 an acre, from the Hasson and Graff Co. The company, owned by oil barons, owned considerable land within the city. The Grove Hill Cemetery site had been long referred to as “one of the largest wild turkey roosts in the county.”
At the 1871 dedication, downtown Oil City businesses were closed in order to allow residents to join in a large parade from Center Street up the hill to the new cemetery at the head of Bishop Avenue. Marchers included the Columbia Band, clergy members, a choir, city officials, members of lodges and social clubs, musicians and everyday citizens.
The cemetery includes an indigents’ burial lot known as Potter’s Field as well as an area where victims of the city’s devastating fire and flood on June 5, 1892, are buried. Most of the victims’ plots do not have tombstones.
The largest monument in the cemetery is for the Smithman family, founders of Monarch Park and owners of the local trolley system.
Oil region Library Association
In Oil City, Venango County, Pennsylvania, take Center Street across the railroad tracks and turn left onto Plummer Street. Go 7/10th mile and turn right onto Cedar Avenue. Go 4/10th mile and turn left onto Bishop Avenue. The cemetery entrance is on your left. This is a very large cemetery; therefore it is recommended that you have done prior research in the location of the lot you are seeking. If you visit during office hours, the office is located on the grounds and the caretakers are very helpful and will assist you in the location of gravesites.
It's also known as Oak Hill Cemetery.