3. Place History
The History of the Dead: Rockafield Cemetery
Noah Kindig
Today, Wright State University educates around 11,000 undergraduate and graduate students yearly across its two campuses. The University has given degrees to over 100,000 people across Ohio, the United States, and worldwide. Its main campus contains 32 academic buildings, 33 student residential buildings, and the Nutter Center, an entertainment and athletics value (Wright State University) But, far from the noise of thousands of students and vehicles that daily pass through its campus, the history of the land before it became a university can be found. In the middle of WSU’s campus woods lies the Anatomical Gift Cemetery and the Rockafield Cemetery. Not only is it strange for a university to have a cemetery on its campus, but the cemetery is also so separate from the academic center and living quarters that it doesn’t even have a marker on official maps, it can be found simply by zooming in near the exact middle of campus (Wright State University – Maps)
Found on Wright State University Maps (https://www.wright.edu/maps)
The Anatomical Gift Cemetery
The two parts of the cemetery look diametrically different today, as the Anatomical Gift Cemetery is well taken care of by the University to honor bodies donated to science, but the Rockafield portion has largely been ignored since 2009. The Anatomical Gift Cemetery contains a memorial stone to the donators, a well-kept green space, and a sign that gives information on how to donate. On the other hand, the Rockafield Cemetery had a fence put up in 2009 to mark the border of the burial space but has fallen apart since. The cemetery contains the ancestors, close relatives, and friends of the Rockafield family, who was one of the first white settler families to move into the land after the Treaty of Greenville in 1795, which removed the Kaskaskia peoples and other Native American people from the land. (Ferriero, 2021)
The area that became Wright State University was owned by the Welsh, Warner, and Butes families operating farmsteads, but the Rockafields had the greatest impact on the shaping of the land. Mary and John Rockafield’s family were living in Bath township by 1807, and their son, John Rockafield, had a home labeled on an 1855 map of Greene County, which is very close to the modern-day location of the cemetery (Greene, 2021). Jumping forward to the 1960s, A house for the sitting president of Wright State University was built on former Rockafield property and was aptly named Rockafield House. It was damaged by a treefall in 2015, and sadly has been demolished since. Because of the activity around the campus woods from the 1800s to the mid-1960s, educators at Wright State to this day still find artifacts from the white settlers of the 19th and 20th century. However, no relics have been found of the Native American tribes that inhabited the land before the settlers, as they were either removed by the white inhabitants, or these grounds were controlled by the Kaskaskia and other tribes but never lived on (Greene, 2021).
Heading back to the 1830s, the Rockafield family had been living on the land for several decades, and their family members were beginning to pass away. They established Rockafield Cemetery in 1830 as a family gravesite, but eventually branched out to local neighbors and other community members to be buried there as well. (Find a Grave, 2019) Rockafield Cemetery became a place full of history of not just for the Rockafield family, but for the local community as well. From the 1830s through the 1900s, Rockafield Cemetery became recognized by Greene County and had around 45 graves on its half-acre plot.
Rockafield House in the 1960s
Rockafield Cemetery (Notice the lone fencepost and the lack of grass)
Starting in 1960, Ohio Governor James Rhodes wanted to establish higher education facilities at a maximum of 30 miles from every Ohio citizen, which led to the funding and creation of several public universities. In the early 1960s, Wright State University was formed as a branch of Miami University and Ohio State University. (Wright State University – About) When the new University looked to purchase its first plot of land for construction, its first leaders chose between three plots of land to build a campus. They raised nearly $6 Million Dollars in cash and valid pledges, meaning there would be a public university created in the Dayton area. Eventually, the land owned by the Rockafields and other local farmers was chosen due to its price for amount of land that could be bought, and for its close relation to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. The Air Force was a key player in Wright State purchasing the land from the Rockafields, as Charles W.Ingler records, “The involvement of the U.S. Air Force on this site was an unusual case in federal-state-local comity. Air Force planners had dreamed of a nearby university for a long time. When this prospect emerged in 1962, they quickly offered to contribute about 200 additional federally owned acres lying on the north and east edges of the tract.” (Ingler, 1987) However, the Rockafield family was willing to sell a large portion of its land to Wright State, allowing the University to purchase over four-hundred and twenty acres for over $750,000. The remaining money left over from the Combined University Building Fund Committee, which was over five million dollars, went towards the first academic and student housing buildings at Wright State. (Ingler, 1987)
An Aerial View of Wright State's Main Campus, 1969
The Evolution of Wright State's Main Campus, Photo taken 1997
Wright State University acquired the Rockafield family land in 1964, which included the historical Rockafield Cemetery. The Boonshoft School of medicine saw the opportunity of the space and expanded their own portion of the area in 1978 for donations to science. The graveyard is now a legal burial ground by the Fairborn City Council, and is a hidden gem on Wright State’s Campus, despite being near the exact center of the land purchased. Few students that study at Wright State know much about the Campus Woods, let alone the graveyard in the middle of campus. In 2022, the graveyard has been largely neglected in comparison to the Anatomical Gift Cemetery directly next to it. Despite nearly 45 people buried inside its grounds, there are only a few gravesites that remain, and the fences and grass that kept the space looking nice and respectful just a few years ago have left. It is not required by federal law to protect the cemetery, but as a place of historical significance, the cemetery should be preserved out of respect to the previous landowners and to the dead. The land purchase of what is now Wright State University was only possible because of this historical family in Greene County, but we have discarded this place, and the history that comes along with it.
The Gravestone of Martin Rockafield, one of the few left standing at Rockafield Cemetery
Works Cited
Wright State University. “Quick Facts.” Quick Facts | Wright State University, https://www.wright.edu/about/quick-facts.
Wright State University. “Maps: Wright State University.” Maps | Wright State University, https://www.wright.edu/maps.
Ferriero, D. “The Importance of Acknowledging Our History: The Dayton Federal Records Center and the Kingsridge Federal Records Center, Dayton, Ohio.” National Archives and Records Administration, National Archives and Records Administration, 30 Aug. 2021, https://aotus.blogs.archives.gov/2021/08/30/the-importance-of-acknowledging-our-history-the-dayton-federal-records-center-and-the-kingsridge-federal-records-center-dayton-ohio/.
Ingler, Charles W. “Founding and Fulfillment : 1964-1984, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio.” CORE Scholar, 1987, https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/special_books/7/.
Greene, Lance. “Conservation of Archaeological Sites in the Wright State University Woods.” CORE Scholar, Wright State University , 11 Sept. 2021, https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/woods_symposium/2021/november19/5/.
“Rockafield Cemetery in Fairborn, Ohio - Find a Grave Cemetery.” Find a Grave, Find a Grave, 2019, https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2186633/rockafield-cemetery.
“About: Lake Campus: Wright State University.” About | Lake Campus | Wright State University, Wright State University , 2022, https://lake.wright.edu/about.