Saint Joseph Cemetery
Johnstown, Cambria County, Pennsylvania

Bedford St
Johnstown PA

Contributed by Vicki Erdley, Aug 25, 2000 [martoondcartoon@aol.com].
Total records = 4,160.

Saint Joseph Cemetery is in the Geistown section right next to St Benedicts Catholic Church. The flats refer to the section that has all flat tombstones. Those with the ending of MS are in the Mausoleum section.

The earliest Catholic Church in the Johnstown area was St. John's in 1844 on Church St. in the old Conemaugh Boro* area. Their original cemetery was also at this location and was sometimes referred to as the Conemaugh Burial Grounds in obituaries. Some bodies buried there before 1855 May have been reinterred in St. Joseph Cemetery.

The Germans founded St. Joseph Church in 1852 at the corner of Singer & Huber Sts. in Conemaugh Boro*. In 1855, they acquired a cemetery site at Sandyvale and was known as the "Catholic Burial Grounds." After this cemetery was severly flooded in 1887, St. Joseph's began looking for a new cemetery site on higher grounds. After considering sites at Grandview or Geistown , the one in Geistown, offered by the Nees family for $200 per acre, was selected.

The earliest burials in Geistown were victims of the 1889 Flood. All bodies were removed from the Sandyvale site to Geistown and they sold the Sandyvale site in 1920 for industrial use. This was separate from the stie of the current Sandyvale Cemetery. A mission chapel in honor of St. Benedict was built in 1893, at the site of the present St. Joseph's Mausoleum. This building was moved to Geistown (site of the present St. Benedict Church) in the early 1930's on land acquired from the Freidhoff family. St. Johns, lacking space on Church St., also acquired a cemetery site in Geistown. All bodies were then reinterred in Geistown and the Church St. site was sold for housing development. * Conemaugh Boro was later incorporated into Johnstown Proper and is NOT part of either Current East Conemaugh boro or Conemaugh Twp. Above Data provided by: Carl Gaus

- Vicki Erdley

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