Alexander Ralston (1771-5 Jan 1827)

But … what is the surveyor and designer of Washington, D.C., and Indianapolis, IN, doing in the lot set aside for Destitute Instructors? Alexander Ralston was born in Scotland in 1771. He worked as an engineer before immigrating to the United States. He found work as an assistant to Pierre L’Enfant, where his work included helping L’Enfant lay out Washington, D.C.

Ralston came to Indiana soon before statehood (1816), homesteading in southern Indiana. He was hired by the state commissioner to oversee the survey of Indianapolis and later charged with design of the new city. Ralson died in 1827 and was buried in the Greenlawn Cemetery complex just southwest of downtown Indianapolis. In 1874, his remains were moved to Crown Hill Cemetery and placed in the “Charity Lot for Destitute Instructions in Public Schools.” He was neither a teacher nor known for being destitute.

There is no understanding of why most of these individuals would be in a lot for destitute teachers. Keatley, Tyler and Coffin were teachers, but the remaining had no relation to the Indianapolis Public School system. Crown Hill Cemetery donated Ralston’s plot to the City of Indianapolis when the Greenlawn Cemetery complex was closed and his grave needed to be moved. City Council minutes note that Ralson’s body could be placed in the lot because of its beautiful location — on a slope behind the soon-to-be constructed Gothic Chapel and it was determined that the sites would not be “needed for the purpose originally intended.” To pay for Ralston’s tombstone (he did not have one at his original burial location and the City did not purchase him one when they moved him), the citizens of the city started a fundraising campaign for a monument. These funds were never spent on a monument and not until the 1930s would the Alexander Ralston Memorial Committee of the Teachers Federation work to mark his grave, which was unveiled in November 1937.