OHIO
McPherson Cemetery
McPherson Cemetery is located in Clyde, Ohio, in Sandusky County, and is one of the area’s older burial grounds, established around 1824. Covering roughly 30 acres and maintained by the City of Clyde, it contains more than 7,000 burials and reflects nearly two centuries of local history.
The cemetery is most notably associated with Major General James B. McPherson, a Union Army officer during the American Civil War. He was killed in 1864, and the cemetery was later named in his honor. His gravesite and related memorials are among the most significant features of the grounds and contribute to its historical importance.
In addition to McPherson, the cemetery is the final resting place of several other notable individuals, including Medal of Honor recipients such as Rodger W. Young and Charles H. McCleary, as well as figures connected to military service and regional history. One burial of note is Emma Anderson, the mother of writer Sherwood Anderson.
Over time, McPherson Cemetery has become recognized not only as a historic burial site but also as a preserved part of northwest Ohio’s heritage. It includes sections dating back to the early 19th century and has undergone periods of restoration and maintenance. Like many historic cemeteries, it has also experienced occasional vandalism, but remains an active and maintained site today.
Overall, McPherson Cemetery serves as both a local historic landmark and a place of remembrance, closely tied to Civil War history and the broader story of the Clyde community.
Whitehouse Cemetery
Whitehouse Cemetery is a small, local cemetery in the Whitehouse, Ohio area west of Toledo. It serves families from the surrounding Lucas County communities and reflects a typical Midwestern rural–suburban burial ground: quiet, modest in size, and primarily composed of local family plots and individual graves rather than large monuments or major historic memorials.
The cemetery became more widely known because it is associated with the gravesite of Gary "Andy" Eckert, a U.S. Army sergeant who was killed in Iraq on May 8, 2005. His family’s story gained national attention years later through media coverage of his son Myles Eckert’s “pay-it-forward” act, which helped highlight the lasting personal impact of military loss on families.
On May 8, 2014, the ninth anniversary of Sgt. Eckert’s death, his family gathered at his gravesite in this cemetery area to launch the Patriot Soil Project. During that event, soil was collected from his resting place as the first official act of the project, which was created to gather soil from graves of fallen service members across the United States as a symbolic national tribute.
Because of this event, the cemetery is remembered not only as a local burial ground, but also as the starting point of a broader memorial effort tied to the Eckert family’s story and the Patriot Soil Project.
SERGEANT'S SON GETS FIRST SCOOP - OFFICIAL LAUNCH NEWS FROM WHITEHOUSE CEMETERY
06/12/2014
THE PATRIOT SOIL PROJECT ANNOUNCES OFFICIAL LAUNCH
04/25/2014
BUILDING FOR AMERICA'S BRAVEST CONCERT
05/14/2013