Greenwood Cemetery (Birmingham, Michigan)

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Greenwood Cemetery is located on Oak Avenue in Birmingham, Michigan. It covers 7.9 acres and has more than 3,000 graves, with about 650 dating to the 1800s. The grounds feature many monuments made from limestone, marble, cast zinc, and granite, and an iron fence with low stone pillars marks the entrance.

The Greenwood Cemetery Association was formed in 1885 to maintain the grounds. When the association dissolved in 1946, the city of Birmingham took over ownership and maintenance.

The oldest part of the cemetery sits on land bought from the federal government by Dr. Ziba Swan of Albany, New York, in 1821. The first burials on this half-acre parcel occurred in 1825. Twenty-one years later, 21 local citizens, including Dr. Ebenezer Raynale, purchased the cemetery property and an additional 1.5 acres from Swan. Martha Baldwin, founder of the Ladies’ Library Association, helped organize local women into the Greenwood Cemetery Association in 1885.

From 1846 to 1904 the cemetery was enlarged three times, growing to about 8 acres. A second section, Side Two, was created in 1825 on Swan’s land. In 1946 Birmingham took over the operation of the cemetery.

Greenwood Cemetery is the resting place of Oakland County’s early pioneers and notable residents. Birmingham’s only American Revolutionary War veteran, John Daniels, was buried here in 1832 after moving to Michigan with his wife in his old age. Dr. Swan was interred in 1847.