Mount Hazel Cemetery

01 / The story of this place

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Mount Hazel is one of Detroit's quiet corners, a small old cemetery on Lahser Road between McNichols and Seven Mile on the northwest side. It was established in 1855, when this was still farm country in Redford Township, decades before Detroit grew out to meet it. Today it belongs to the City of Detroit, which runs it from Gethsemane Cemetery; there is no office on site and no new plots are sold. Blues fans come for one grave. Eddie James "Son" House Jr., born in Mississippi in 1902, was one of the founding voices of the Delta blues, and his playing shaped both Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters. Found again by blues researchers in 1964, he enjoyed a late career on the folk and blues festival circuit, then retired in 1974 and moved to Detroit, where he died at Harper Hospital on October 19, 1988. For years only a modest family marker stood on his grave, until the Detroit Blues Society raised money with benefit concerts for the big black stone monument that stands beside it today.

1. Established in 1855, when the area was still Redford Township
2. Owned by the City of Detroit, with no office on site
3. Son House, a founding father of the Delta blues, is buried here
4. His large black monument was paid for by Detroit Blues Society benefit concerts
5. The grave is in the front section, inside the U-shaped drive