West Lawn Cemetery, Canton, Ohio

Canton’s Historic Cemetery

The Canton Cemetery Association was formed in 1859, and the first burial at West Lawn was in 1861, on about 60 acres that were then the outskirts of town. The association is a local nonprofit, owned by its lot-holders and run by a board, and it runs North Lawn Cemetery on Cleveland Avenue too.

West Lawn is best known as President William McKinley’s first resting place. After his assassination, his body lay in the cemetery’s receiving vault, built in 1893, from September 19, 1901 until the McKinley National Memorial next door was finished. His wife Ida visited every day until her death in 1907. They rest in the memorial now, which the association’s map marks as not accessible from the cemetery entrance.

The association names the Timken, Hoover, Aultman and Diebold families among those buried here. The McKinley museum’s walking-tour guide adds McKinley’s parents, his brother Abner and two of his sisters, and William R. Day, Secretary of State and later a Supreme Court Justice. There are Civil War memorials on the grounds, including the Union Army and Navy Memorial, and the McKinley Historical Society leads a tour of the cemetery every fall.

The grounds are inside the City of Canton, between 4th and 12th Streets NW, with Interstate 77 to the west.

History and hours are from the Canton Cemetery Association’s West Lawn page, its about page, foundation page, visitors page and its account of the receiving vault, and the walking-tour guide by the McKinley Presidential Library & Museum. 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 West Lawn and North 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. The rules’ only exception is inside the association’s own mausoleums, which are at North Lawn.
• 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.
• At West Lawn, existing floral urns can be removed if they become unsightly, and no new urns or settees are allowed.

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.

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 West 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 West Lawn, From Ravenna

We’re a monument shop in Ravenna, about twenty-three miles from West Lawn, and we work in every cemetery in Stark County. West 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 West Lawn that means the section, its precedent, 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 some 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 West 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 North Lawn Cemetery, and our Canton page covers the other cemeteries around the city.