North Lawn Cemetery, Canton, Ohio

West Lawn’s Sister Cemetery

As West Lawn grew, the Canton Cemetery Association acquired a working farm on Cleveland Avenue, and it became North Lawn. Nimishillen Creek winds through the grounds, and the restored farmhouse is now the office, the association’s service center for visitors. It handles West Lawn too: the association’s West Lawn map gives this office’s hours. The association is a local nonprofit, formed in 1859, owned by its lot-holders and run by a board.

North Lawn has two mausoleums. The Chapel Mausoleum has a carillon in its tower, and in front of it stand two columbaria, Tranquility and Serenity, with 36 niches each. There are garden sections for ground burial, family estates, and Emerald Meadows, a green burial section certified by the Green Burial Council in the southwest corner.

At the heart of the Veterans Garden stands a monument to those who served in the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines. The association provides burial spaces there free to honorably discharged veterans, with the spaces beside them available for spouses.

Canton or Plain Township? The Stark County Auditor’s records put all of North Lawn’s 80 acres inside the City of Canton. It’s in the Plain Local School District, which is probably where the Plain label comes from. Forest Hill Cemetery, a separate cemetery, is just south on Cleveland Avenue.

History, features, and hours are from the Canton Cemetery Association’s North Lawn page, its about page, the McKinley museum’s walking-tour guide, the association’s veterans page and contact page; the acreage and city from the Stark County Auditor’s parcel records. All checked 2026-11-02. The cemetery office is the authority on anything current.

Decorations And Visiting

The association’s rules are stricter than most families expect, and they apply at North Lawn and West Lawn alike:

• Winter decorations and poinsettias must be removed by March 31.
• Artificial flowers aren’t permitted anywhere on the grounds from April through October, except inside the mausoleums.
• Not permitted at any time: glass, shells, toys, metal, wood, rocks, ornaments, chairs, vases, urns, boxes, and the like. The association can remove and discard them.
• In the mausoleums, one artificial arrangement is allowed per crypt or niche, in an approved vase, and there’s a three-day clean-out in about mid-November and again in March.
• In Emerald Meadows, no artificial flowers at any time.

Visiting. The association asks that only friends and family of the people buried there come onto the grounds, that anyone under 18 is with an adult, and that cars keep to 15 miles an hour. Gates close at 5:00 pm from November through April.

From the association’s Rules and Regulations (revised June 1, 2015, the edition it links today) and its visitors page, checked 2026-11-02. The association can change its rules, and the office has the final word.

How A Headstone Gets To North Lawn

The Canton Cemetery Association sells and installs headstones itself. It also allows a memorial bought from a retailer, which is what we are, as long as the memorial and its installation follow its rules. Either way, every monument has to be approved by the association. The second route, as the association’s rules set it out:

• An application comes first. The monument company applies in writing for approval of the memorial, with its material, maker, size, style, finish and design, and a drawing showing its size, its place on the plot, and the inscription. The association can turn down a design it judges unsuited to the plot.
• The association pours the foundation. Foundations are put in only by the association’s employees, or by contractors it assigns and supervises, at the expense of whoever orders the memorial, and no monument is set until its foundation is finished and paid for.
• Winter changes the timing. The association may stop pouring foundations from November 1 to April 1, and for the two weeks before Memorial Day. A stone ordered in winter can be designed and made, and it’s set once the foundation is in.
• Setting is on weekdays. Memorials are delivered between 9:00 am and 4:00 pm on weekdays, with a day’s notice. The setting crew contacts the office on arrival with the association’s signed approval for each stone, and it needs insurance on file with the association.
• Everything is paid first. No memorial goes on a plot until everything owed to the cemetery for it has been paid.

From the association’s headstones page and its Rules and Regulations (revised June 1, 2015), checked 2026-11-02. The association can change its rules, and the office has the final word.

A Memorial For North Lawn, From Ravenna

We’re a monument shop in Ravenna, about twenty miles from North Lawn, and we work in every cemetery in Stark County. North Lawn is one of them. The granite is cut, lettered, and finished by hand in our own shop.

We ask the cemetery first, every time. At North Lawn that means the section, whether the plot takes an upright, and when the association can pour the foundation, before you’ve chosen anything. The rules above are why it matters here: a monument needs two graves, a marker stays under six inches, and the veterans’ and green sections have their own limits. If what you have in mind isn’t allowed, you’ll hear it from us early, while changing your mind is still free. At most cemeteries, the cemetery pours the foundation and we set the stone on it. At North Lawn the association’s rules settle the first half: it pours every foundation.

You don’t have to make the drive to order. We can start from a phone call and send proofs. If you’d rather see granite in daylight than on a screen, the showroom in Ravenna is open weekdays, with evenings and weekends by appointment, and there’s no obligation attached to walking in. The association also runs West Lawn Cemetery, and our Canton page covers the other cemeteries around the city.