The Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery Park

A very well maintained, small cemetery hidden away next to the Lake View cemetery. It’s a great place to sit and enjoy the quiet!

Pretty cool old cemetery/​park in north Capitol Hill. I would have liked to read about its history on the bulletin board in the park, but when I went the history section was obscured, ironically with a writeup from Unilocal

This a really cool, little known location, right across the street from Lake View Cemetery. I am married to a North Carolinian, so the Civil War is a frequent topic of conversation in our household. The cemetery is small, but there is an amazing amount of history here. It’s an interesting place to spend a sunny afternoon.

Right next to Volunteer park. Proudly cleaned up and partially restored by the brothers of St Johns’ Lodge #9 serving Seattle since 1860.

Who would have thought a U.S. Civil War cemetery exists in Seattle. No, but there is! It’s very cool, Check it out. They’re also looking for volunteers.

As a Yankee carpetbagger, one of my enduring complaints about Seattle is the lack of real history. My own hometown in bleak, northern, industrial Michigan was a thriving lumbering ‘burg of 2000 — birthing the Paul Bunyan legends — while Seattle was still just a twinkle in Arthur Denny’s eye.
So it’s easy for me to forget that, young as it is (and isolated as it is from the rest of the country), Seattle’s still a venerable part of our American union.
I was pleasantly reminded of this on a chilly day last fall when I happened to stumble upon the Grand Army of the Republic Cemetery Park on the north side of Capitol Hill. An inconspicuous greenspace just to the north of Lake View Cemetery, I would’ve missed the GAR Cemetery if it weren’t for the faded obelisk commemorating «our Heroes 1861−1865» in the center of concentric circles formed by 526 weathered graves.
I guess I’d never considered that so many of the young men and their families who faced the trials of the Civil War could’ve actually made it this far west, settled, and had lives here. But it’s true. A list at the Cemetery’s entrance gives their names along with the unit in which they served in the Civil War — many, many young men from Minnesota, Michigan, and New York … so many Yankees, it’s like you can see the progressive streak in Seattle from its very birth. The honored dead include a Congressional Medal of Honor Winner, officers, bugle boys — the whole range of Civil War veterans.
GAR Cemetery is a fascinating piece of Seattle history in a beautiful, quiet little neighborhood. If you’re a history buff homesick for the East Coast, check this place out.