Cemeteries
Savannah’s beauty extends beyond the living. She boasts three interesting and beautiful cemeteries that offer visitors a glimpse of her favorite sons and daughters, and the history surrounding them. All three are well worth a visit.
Colonial Park Cemetery is located in downtown Savannah at the intersection of Abercorn and Oglethorpe. It was founded in 1750 and closed for burials in 1853, then reopened as a park in 1896. Many famous Revolutionary War heroes are buried in Colonial Cemetery, including Button Gwinnett, a Georgia signer of the Declaration of Independence and governor of Georgia during the War. He died from injuries sustained in a duel.The Cemetery has some 10,000 bodies buried in it although only about 600 have markers. They include the 700 Yellow Fever victims of the great epidemic of 1820.
During the Civil War, Sherman’s troops were stationed in the Cemetery while in Savannah and many graves were disturbed. The mischievous soldiers tampered with dates and as a result, many markers are incorrect.
The Cemetery contains markers pointing out the more famous graves and explaining some history about the times. It is open 8:00 am to 5 pm daily. Admission: free, although large groups must have permit.
Laurel Grove Cemetery has two parts: the north and the south.
South Laurel Grove
In 1853 four acres were set aside at Laurel Grove Cemetery for African American burials, and many graves were moved from the earlier cemetery. The earlier cemetery, which is labeled “Negro Ground” in the map of 1818, lay well beyond the southern edge of the city, and was reflective of the closeness of earlier generations to their African roots with the tradition of placing on the graves objects the deceased had used during their lifetime. Laurel Grove South Cemetery with its vaults and tombstones in the European manner reflects the waning of traditional African custom and the acceptance of the dominant Euro-American conventions of vaults and tombstones.
The first major movement to preserve the history of Laurel Grove South was in 1931, when the cemetery was cleaned up. In 1958, after prominent black Savannahians again mobilized to preserve Laurel Grove, the Savannah Sugar Refinery presented wrought iron gates to the city for the cemetery, and the city itself spent $3000 to clean and renovate the site.
According to Charles Elmore, in the early 1970’s, W.W. Law “almost singlehandedly led the movement to improve Laurel Grove Cemetery South, and identified historically significant grave sites which led to the City of Savannah maintaining this venerable cemetery in a dignified manner by providing street names and markers to make it easy for citizens and historians to identify various burial places.” Plaques now mark famous African Americans buried at Laurel Grove South, including Andrew Bryan, Henry Cunningham and Henry Cox Marshall all three reverends at the First African Baptist Church. Location: 2101 Kollick St., Savannah, GA. Admission: free. 912.651.6772
North Laurel Grove
North Laurel Grove was designed around a natural ravine and probably has the highest concentration of Victorian period cemetery architecture in the Southeast including a large Central Green with curving roadways. A Keeper’s House, Porter’s Lodge, Gazebo and Public Holidng Vault were built by 1853 and are still used today. The Cemetery filled quickly in its infancy due to removals from the Old Cemetery, several yellow fever epidemics and the Civil War. A portion of the cemetery was dedicated to those who fought for the Confederate States of America. Other famous people buried here include Juliet Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts; her grandfather, William Washington Gordon, founder of the Central of Georgia Railroad; and James Pierpont, author of the song, Jingle Bells. Location: 802 W. Anderson St. in Savannah. Open 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. Free. 912.651.6772
Bonaventure Cemetery is considered one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the United States. “Bonaventure” means “good fortune” in French, and it was the good fortune of John Mulryne and Josiah Tattnall that created this cemetery. Both were large landholders in Georgia, but they much more in common than owning the land that became the cemetery. Mulryne, who built the third Tybee Lighthouse in 1773, was Tattnell’s father-in-law and owner of Bonaventure, his plantation home. It was a family cemetery on the plantation that formed the nucleus of the present-day Bonaventure Cemetery.
In 1848,the property was sold and roughly 70 acres were set aside as a cemetery. Then in 1868 plots in a privately held cemetery next to the 70 acres were sold and added on. In 1907 the city purchased the cemetery and renamed it Bonaventure, in honor of the former owner’s home.
In 1994 interest in the cemetery peaked with the publication of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, a quirky murder mystery partly set in the historic cemetery. The 1997 Clint Eastwood film of the same title featured scenes filmed in the “New Bonaventure Cemetery.”
Johnny Mercer is probably the most famous grave in the cemetery and Conrad Aiken is a close second. Civil War buffs can find the graves of Claudius Charles Wilson, involved in the early skirmishing along the Chickamauga River that precipatated the battle of Chickamauga; Josiah Tattnall, captain of the Confederate Navy who returned after the war to Savannah; and Henry Rootes Jackson, the lawyer/poet who had a successful military career until his capture at Nashville in 1864.
Founders buried at the cemetery include Noble Wimberly Jones, who was an early radical Patriot in the American Revolution, and Edward Telfair, an active Patriot who went on to become governor.
Additionally, a small section of the cemetery is designated as a veteran’s cemetery and an area in front contains the ashes of Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
Location: Bonaventure Road. Hours: 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. Free, however, donations are requested. 912.651.6843
