Hazelwood
Calvary Cemetery
Hazelwood cemetery. 1902 jailbreak burials
Calvary is the Catholic cemetery on Hazelwood Avenue, where Hazelwood, Greenfield, and Squirrel Hill meet. The Diocese of Pittsburgh bought about 200 acres there in 1886 and laid the cemetery out. The first burial was in June 1888. It is the largest Catholic cemetery in the diocese.
Jack and Ed Biddle are buried there in one grave. They were the brothers who sawed their way out of the county jail in January 1902, with saws brought in by the warden’s wife, and who died of their wounds after they were caught in Butler County. The burial was on the morning of 5 February, and the Pittsburgh Press covered it. The cemetery refused a stone, because Ed’s death was ruled a suicide. The 1984 film Mrs. Soffel is the story of that escape. After the film, a headstone was set on the grave. Buck McGovern, the detective who caught them, is buried at Calvary too.
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