As part of its mission, Cedar Hill Cemetery Foundation is committed to educating the community about the history of Cedar Hill Cemetery and the many people who are buried here. Most people know about the lives and accomplishments of Cedar Hill Cemetery's most notable residents such as J.P. Morgan, Samuel and Elizabeth Colt, and Katharine Hepburn, however, there are more than 30,000 people interred at Cedar Hill Cemetery and each has a story to tell.
We recently received an email from Patrick Hamilton in Brookfield, Wisconsin who informed us that his great, great grandfather, Robert W. Hamilton, is among Cedar Hill's residents. Unbeknownst to us, Robert Hamilton was born in Stirlingshire, Scotland in 1824 and emigrated to America, landing in New York, in 1850. He came to Hartford and began his career with Woodruff and Beach Company’s Corliss Engine Plant building steam engines.
When the Civil War began, Mr. Hamilton moved his family to New York where he built engines for monitor-class war ships, including the famous and innovative U.S.S. Monitor which used propeller rather than a paddle wheel and had a radical engine design. Mr. Hamilton played a key role in helping to meet the required 100 day deadline from the start of battleship contruction to war-ready completion.
At the end of the Civil War, Mr. Hamilton returned to Connecticut and settled with his family in Hartford. Demand for his services as a hydraulic engineer were great and necessitated his travel to many cities throughout the United States. Mr. Hamilton designed the first municipal water pumping system for many of America's largest cities, including Skaneateles, New York and Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee. Working with Edward Allis, later of the Allis-Chalmers fame, Mr. Hamilton won the bid for Milwaukee's project. Mr. Hamilton played an integral role in securing the bid as Allis was new to the construction of pumping systems at the time. In addition to these accomplishments, Mr. Hamilton designed the pumping apparatus satisfying the enormous water needs of the Great Calumet and Hecla mines in Michigan's upper peninsula - at the time the largest producer of copper in the world.
In his retirement years, Mr. Hamilton moved to Dalton, Massachusetts. In 1908, at the age of 83, Mr. Hamilton passed away. He was buried on Valentine's Day 1908 and was the 4,319th person to be interred at Hartford's Cedar Hill Cemetery and will continue to reside in perpetuity in Section 6.
We would like to thank Patrick Hamilton for sharing some of his great, great grandfather's life and accomplishments with us and encourage others to follow suit.
