Union Cemetery
Bellefonte, Centre County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
First burial here as early as 1808. Cemetery chartered in 1856. Here lie three Governors of Pennsylvania and their wives -- Andrew Gregg Curtin (1815-1894), who served 1861-67, and Katharine Wilson Curtin (1821-1903); James Addams Beaver (1837-1914), who served 1887-91, and Mary McAllister Beaver (1842-1926); Daniel Hartman Hastings (1849-1903), who served 1895-99, and Jane Rankin Hastings (1851-1937).
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
Chartered in 1856 on ground already used for burials since 1808, this Bellefonte cemetery became the resting place of an unusual concentration of political power. Three Pennsylvania governors and their wives lie here, spanning the Civil War through the Gilded Age. Chief among them is Andrew Gregg Curtin, the wartime governor who mobilized the commonwealth for the Union.
Why it matters
That a single small-town graveyard holds three of the state's chief executives makes it a quiet monument to Pennsylvania's outsized political influence in nineteenth-century America.
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Related people
- · Andrew Gregg Curtin
- · James Addams Beaver
- · Daniel Hartman Hastings
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Andrew G. Curtin
Bellefonte, PA · est. 1950
On this site was born Andrew G. Curtin, Pennsylvania's Civil War governor. Elected in 1861, he steered the state through the conflict, organizing the celebrated Pennsylvania Reserve Corps and championing the soldiers of the Union. His legacy reached beyond the battlefield: he pushed for State Normal Schools to train teachers and secured funding for State Orphan Schools to care for the children of the war dead.
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