CALVARY CEMETERY (Historical Information)
(Not Surveyed in Davidson County Cemetery Project)
Calvary Catholic Cemetery, owned by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Nashville,
is located at 1001 Lebanon Pike, Nashville, Tennessee.
The land for the future Calvary Cemetery was purchased by Patrick Augustine Feehan, third Catholic Bishop of Tennessee, in 1868. The opening day of Calvary Cemetery is detailed in The Catholic Church in Tennessee, by Thomas Stritch, published in 1987. Pages 169 –170.
Its dedication, on November 29, 1868, was a grand affair. The procession of
carriages was preceded by a band and twenty “neatly uniformed policemen,”
according the local newspaper account. Then came the bishop’s carriage, with
four priests accompanying him. There then followed carriages containing
members of the St. Vincent de Paul Society, the Society of St. Mary’s Orphan
Asylum, the St. Joseph’s Abstinence Society, the school children from the Sisters
of Mercy School, and carriages containing citizens. The line of carriages was so
long that “there was no point along the route from which the entire procession
could be viewed at one time.” At the new cemetery, Bishop Feehan preached to
from 3,000 to 4,000 people… The forty-seven acres cost the diocese $15,000, a
great bargain. Many Catholic families removed to it the bones of their ancestors
from the old Nashville Catholic Cemetery on Cherry Street, now Fourth
Avenue South.
For additional information on Calvary Cemetery, please go to the Diocese of Nashville web site at www.dioceseofnashville.com/calvary
Inquiries may be made directly to the Calvary Cemetery Administration Office about family members buried in the cemetery.
RESEARCH REPORT. MARCH 28, 2005
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