La Chacarita Cemetery

 

The cemetery owes its existence to a yellow fever epidemic in 1871, when existing cemeteries were strained beyond capacity (the upscale La Recoleta Cemetery refused to allow the burial of victims of the epidemic). Until then, the "Cementerio del Sud" (opened in 1867 to bury the dead from cholera and typhoid fever epidemics, located in Parque Patricios) operated as the city's cemetery. During the yellow fever epidemic over 700 people per day were buried there. When the capacity of 18,000 collapsed, the cemetery was closed and a search for a new place started.^[2]

Governor Emlio Mitre created the "Enterratorio General de Buenos Aires", which would be built on a land in the "Chacarita de los Colegiales". The name "chácara" mean "agricultural land" while "Colegiales" referred to students of Colegio Nacional de Buenos Aires that had spent their summertime at those lands since the 18th. century. In the northwest section, a 5-hectare land was chosen, in the same place where a cemetery owned by Jesuit priests existed. Lands that were part of Partido de Belgrano were expropriated. Those lands were used for agriculture purposes, most of them were gardens with a few ranches on them. Mitre also ordered the construction of a road to access the cemetery and a railroad.^[2]

The cemetery was opened on 14 April 1817, surrounded by Avenida Dorrego, Jorge Newbery, Avenida Corrientes, and Av. Guzmán. Its main entrance was located on Av. Corrientes. As the epidemic went by, coffins accumulated at the cemetery's door, sometimes buries took a week due to the great amount of victims.^[2]

 

 

Rolling stock used to transport coffins to the cemetery: "Tramway Rural" coaches (left) were pulled by La Porteña locomotive (right)

British rail company Buenos Aires Western Railway was commissioned to build a 6-km length line from the Buenos Aires downtown to the cemetery. It was nicknamed tren fúnebre and departed from Av. Corrientes and Ecuador (Bermejo station, a huge shed where the coffins were loaded). It had two sops, the first on Medrano street and the other on Ministro Inglés street (today Av. Scalabrini Ortiz) where the train loaded more coffins.^[2] Workshops were on Corrientes and Pueyrredón streets and they served as terminus for a short time.^[6]

Works (that had a cost of m$n 2,2 million) were directed by French engineer Augusto Ringuelet who finished it on 11 April.^[6] Trains were pulled by La Porteña,^[2] the locomotive that had served in the inauguration of the Argentine railway network in 1857.^[7] The last wagon was occupied by dead relatives. The service had a frequency of 2 trains per day.^[2] Between February and June, more than 15,000 people died.^[8]

 

In that first Chacarita Cemetery (also known as "Cementerio Viejo"), 3,423 people were buried until it was closed in 1886. The current Chacarita Cemetery was officially established on 9 December 1886. It had been projected by French engineer Enrique Clement during the government of major Torcuato de Alvear, and was initially named "Cementerio del Oeste" but then renamed as its predecessor in 1949.^[2]

The original Cementerio Viejo of Parque Patricios would be reopened in 1880 to bury the dead of Combate de los Corrales, a fight for Buenos Aires that took place on 22 June. In 1897 it was transformed into a public park, being today the "Parque Florentino Ameghino".^[2][8]

 

 

British (left) and German cemetery chapels

In the 19th century a large number of Britons came to Argentina to work in the many areas of the economy in which England then had extensive interests. At first the British Cemetery was founded beside the Socorro Chapel (started 1821 - authorized on 22 February 1822). In 1833 the cemetery had to move to what was then called Victoria Cemetery (today the "Plaza 1° de Mayo") until November, 1892, when they were asked by the Municipality to move.

Section 16 of the Chacarita Cemetery was given in exchange for the Victoria Cemetery. Eventually in 1913 the Cementerio Británico (English: British Cemetery) (or so called "De Disidentes or Corporación del Cementerio Británico de Bs. As.") was divided into the German and the British cemeteries as we know them today, because the two local communities had grown since the beginning of the 19th century.

The British Cemetery and the German Cemetery are today not managed by or part of Chacarita Cemetery.

Notable burials in La Chacarita cemetery include:

• Lucas Bridges (1874–1949), Anglo-Argentine author
• Thomas Bridges (1842–1898), Anglican missionary
• Frank Brown (1858–1943), popular English clown
• Jeannette Campbell (1916–2003), swimmer
• Cecilia Grierson (1859–1934), physician and feminist
• Alexander Watson Hutton (1853–1936), founder of Argentine football
• Juan Bautista Thorne (1807–1885), Army Colonel

• Hans Langsdorff (1894–1939), Captain of the World War II pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee
• Friedrich Bergius (1884–1949), Nobel Prize in Chemistry
• Annemarie Heinrich (1912–2005), photographer

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  Chapel of the cemetery in 1891
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  Historical archives building
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  French Philanthropic Society pantheon
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  Spanish-Argentine Mutual Society pantheon
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  Crematorium
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  Galician Center pantheon
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  German Cemetery, main gates

 

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Chacarita Cemetery.

• Official website  
• La Chacarita Cemetery cultural historical heritage rescue webpage by Hernán Santiago Vizzari (in Spanish)
• Google Maps
• British Cemetery Corporation of Buenos Aires by Eduardo A. Kesting (in Spanish and English)
• La Chacarita Cemetery at Find a Grave  

34°35′27″S 58°27′35″W / 34.59083°S 58.45972°W / -34.59083; -58.45972