Historic Ritchie Cemetery Traditional Cache

This is one of the few cemeteries left in Shawnee County that didn't have a geocache in it. We found a spot that is appropriate for a cache. There is a short walk from the parking spot to the cache location. This is also a daytime-only cache (no night caching please). For FTF, there is an unactivated travel bug.

This cemetery is no longer active, being deemed "abandoned" by the city back in 1962. Currently, Topeka Parks and Recreation maintains it.

This cemetery is known as Ritchie Cemetery, named after 19th-century territorial Kansas abolitionist John Ritchie. The cemetery is also known as the South Topeka Cemetery, the Slave Cemetery, and the Howard Cemetery, There are roughly 100 folks buried here, although most of the graves are not marked. There are four relatively new stones that mark the graves of war veterans.

For more information about the history of the cemetery, and it's namesake John Ritchie, go here.