Mountain Grove Cemetery, Bridgeport

Bridgeport, Connecticut

Bridgeport is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Connecticut. Located in Fairfield County, the city had an estimated population of 144,229 at the 2010 United States Census and is the core of the Greater Bridgeport area...

, Connecticut

Connecticut

Connecticut is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, and the state of New York to the west and the south .Connecticut is named for the Connecticut River, the major U.S. river that approximately...

, was laid out in 1849 in a park-like, rural setting away from the center of the city.

The cemetery was designed by P. T. Barnum

P. T. Barnum

Phineas Taylor Barnum was an American showman, businessman, scam artist and entertainer, remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the circus that became the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus....

, who himself is buried there.

Notable interments

Notables interred here include:

• Neal Ball
  Neal Ball
  Cornelius "Neal" Ball , the American baseball player, achieved fame on July 19, when he pulled off the first unassisted triple play in Major League baseball history in a game against the Boston Red Sox. "During the same game, he set another major league record for shortstops...
  
  , baseball player
• P. T. Barnum
  P. T. Barnum
  Phineas Taylor Barnum was an American showman, businessman, scam artist and entertainer, remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the circus that became the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus....
  
  
• William D. Bishop
  William D. Bishop
  William Darius Bishop was a U.S. Representative from Connecticut.Born in Bloomfield, New Jersey, Bishop pursued preparatory studies.He graduated from Yale College in 1849.He studied law....
  
  
• Fanny Crosby
  Fanny Crosby
  Frances Jane Crosby , usually known as Fanny Crosby in the United States and by her married name, Frances van Alstyne, in the United Kingdom, was an American Methodist rescue mission worker, poet, lyricist, and composer. During her lifetime, she was well-known throughout the United States...
  
  , gospel hymn composer, poet
• Vernon Dalhart
  Vernon Dalhart
  Vernon Dalhart , born Marion Try Slaughter, was a popular American singer and songwriter of the early decades of the 20th century. He is a major influence in the field of country music.-Early life:...
  
  , country singer and songwriter
• Robert Lawson
  Robert Lawson (author)
  Robert Lawson was an American author and illustrator of children's books. During World War I, he also served as a camouflage artist.-Background:Born in New York City, Lawson spent his early life in Montclair, New Jersey...
  
  , the Caldecott
  Caldecott Medal
  The Caldecott Medal is awarded annually by the Association for Library Service to Children , a division of the American Library Association, to the artist of the most distinguished American picture book for children published that year. The award was named in honor of nineteenth-century English...
  
   and Newbery medal
  Newbery Medal
  The John Newbery Medal is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of the American Library Association . The award is given to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children. The award has been given since 1922. ...
  
   winning author and illustrator.
• Margaret Rudkin
  Margaret Rudkin
  Margaret Rudkin , of Fairfield, Connecticut, was the founder of Pepperidge Farm.Born in New York City, she was the eldest of five children of Joseph and Margaret "Healey" Fogarty. She was taught to cook by her grandmother, who started her off with cakes and biscuits. She moved to Long Island when...
  
  , Pepperidge Farms founder
• General Tom Thumb
  General Tom Thumb
  General Tom Thumb was the stage name of Charles Sherwood Stratton , a dwarf who achieved great fame under circus pioneer P.T. Barnum.-Early life:...
  
  , the little person, whose monument includes a life-size statue of himself at the top of a 40-foot obelisk; and his wife Lavinia Warren
  Lavinia Warren
  Lavinia Warren was an American proportionate dwarf and the wife of General Tom Thumb.-Early life:Warren was born at Middleborough, Massachusetts as Mercy Lavinia Warren Bump, a descendant of a French Catholic family named Bonpasse, of Governor Thomas Mayhew, and five Mayflower passengers: John...
  
  

Civil War monument

The cemetery includes a Civil War

American Civil War

The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...

 monument, Pro Patria. The granite stele monument with bronze plaque, raised in 1906 by the Bridgeport Elias Howe

Elias Howe

Elias Howe, Jr. was an American inventor and sewing machine pioneer.-Early life & family:Howe was born on July 9, 1819 to Dr. Elias Howe, Sr. and Polly Howe in Spencer, Massachusetts. Howe spent his childhood and early adult years in Massachusetts where he apprenticed in a textile factory in...

 Grand Army of the Republic

Grand Army of the Republic

The Grand Army of the Republic was a fraternal organization composed of veterans of the Union Army, US Navy, US Marines and US Revenue Cutter Service who served in the American Civil War. Founded in 1866 in Decatur, Illinois, it was dissolved in 1956 when its last member died...

 post and the State of Connecticut, is dedicated "IN LOVING MEMORY OF THOSE WHO DID NOT RETURN". The monument, by the Bridgeport sculptor Paul Winters Morris (1865–1916) includes bas-relief figures of soldiers with heads bowed. The monument is at the front of a plot marked by pyramids of cannonballs that contains the graves of about 83 Civil War veterans.