Alternate Names: Verboten Cemetery

Established: Earliest known burial dates from 1840s
 

Current Status: Lost

 

Original Township: Norton

 

Directions: On private land atop a hill at the junction of Barber Road and Wadsworth Road (Route 261)

 

Contact: Norton Park & Cemetery Board

               4060 Columbia Woods Drive

               Norton, Ohio 44203

               330.825.7815

 

History: This cemetery was originally on the farm of Dennison Barnes, later known as the Bauer Farm. The origin of the cemetery's name is unknown; however; it is possible that an epidemic of the "black plague", also known as diphtheria or "black tongue fever" may have caused the deaths of at least some of the those buried here, resulting in its name.

 

At the time Volume 1 of the Cemeteries of Summit County was published in 1978, it was noted that several headstones were observed at the bottom of an inaccessible ravine. It is possible some of these were dislodged when the nearby Barberton water tower was built in the 1930s; others were probably pushed over by vandals.

 

In 1989, the Norton Cemetery Board received permission from the Bauer family to remove the four largest headstones still found in the cemetery and reset them in the Norton Center Cemetery. In May 1990 a rededication cemetery was held at Norton Center Cemetery for descendants of the three families whose stones had been moved: Barnes, Brown, and Carpenter.