Aldeer.com Forums Alabama Deer Talk Aldeer General Forum Old Cemeteries...

Something about old cemeteries that I love. I posted pics on here years ago, I think, from one of our visits to Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah. One of the most amazing places that you can visit and spend hours among the monuments there meditating on the past.

Yesterday during our morning walkabout after breakfast we decided to spend some time in Chestnut Street Cemetery in Apalachicola and were rewarded for our efforts. Before the railroad arrived in 1906, Apalachicola was the third largest port in the Gulf after New Orleans and Mobile. Before 1906 and the arrival or train service, the area was only accessible by boat. These folks were some of the early residents...




I love the poetry on old tombstones, some can he humorous, some sad, some beautiful and moving...

Hold her O' Father in thy arms
And henceforth let her be
A messenger of love between
Our human hearts and Thee..."







The Woodmen of the World memorials are always easy to spot, this one was particularly interesting...

The Latin inscription “Dum Tacet Clamat” means: "Though silent, he speaks."




Sometimes the stones tell a story...

Mary, an Apalachicola girl married the love or her life, Adolph, a German immigrant. Unfortunately Adolph met a tragic death on November 13th, 1893. Having lost the love of her life, Mary never remarried and lived the remaining 61 years of her life as a widow. Written on the top of both of their tombstones is: "We will meet again." Like a Vera Lynn song...

We miss thy kind and smiling face
Thy fond and earnest care
Our home is dark without thee
We miss they everywhere...




There are seven Confederate veterans that survived Pickett's Charge buried here. I only found two.

The wife also loves cemeteries especially the older ones...like you she has several pictures of old tombstones and grave markers... sometimes she goes as far as trying to find info on some through ancestry 🤔..she loves all types of history and oddities 😁

One of the things that strikes me when I visit old cemeteries is the number of young children in them. Infant mortality was high back in the early days. My wife’s mother had a sister who died at 18 months of pneumonia. She often said the grandmother never fully got over that loss. When we visit the old family cemetery in Bainbridge, Georgia it looks very similar to your pictures.

Oh yeah... Lots of kids died early back then. Many moms died in childbirth too.

Lots of personal tragedies played out on those places.

cool stuff , thanks for posting. I love to look around old cemeteries , there's one between Leesburg and Beans & Greens that has some old slave graves , some above ground concrete 'vaults' and I think some CSA graves. we always stroll thru the one in St. Augustine when we're there that has a bunch of Spanish soldiers that were killed by the Indians way back. when Im up Cleburne Co around Treat Mtn I walk around the Antioch cemetery - its way back in the woods . nearest house now must be 3-4 mi. but there used to be bunch of houses scattered between CR 49 and GA 100 and I think every one of em had a moonshine still or 3

Old cemeteries are very interesting to me also. Bonaventure is a good one , my all time fav is in Natchez . I have a Pauper Cemetery on my property , graves are marked with large sandstones , no names or dates. Those souls are only know to God.

I'll check the one out in Leesburg. That's just a few minutes from our house up on the mountain.

I'm glad you mentioned Natchez. It's time for us to go back there. I will check out the cemetery when we go.

There's a bunch of interesting back stories about people buried there. One section , is known as the Millionaires Section as everyone in there was very rich via the Cotton business. Some of the wealthiest men in the country, at that time, lived in Natchez. Cool town for sure .

Are you referring to the city cemetery in Natchez on the north side of town? I drove through it one time, very interesting with a lot of history.

Yes , the big one on the North side of town.

That oak tree base tombstone is amazingly realistic and very unique!

Very cool. I like old cemeteries.

I’ve spend some time around Mount Nebo Cemetery in Carlton, AL in southern Clarke County. Seeing the death masks were pretty cool.

I bet it's a Woodsmen of the World tombstone. I've seen several in various forms over the years. They are
Info link below.


https://agraveinterest.blogspot.com/2011/06/woodmen-of-world-and-tree-stone-grave.html

I mentioned Woodmen of the World in the very description just above the picture.

The Woodmen of the World memorials are always easy to spot, this one was particularly interesting...

The Latin inscription “Dum Tacet Clamat” means: "Though silent, he speaks."

I guess people just blow through the pics and don't read the stories. I waste my time writing stuff...

Thanks for sharing the link.

Yellow Fever took a toll on folks that were trying to settle that area of Florida back then.

I think what makes the one you took a photo of so realistic and interesting is the lichen pattern that covers the "bark". Others I have seen are much "cleaner" and therefore not that realistic looking. Hopefully, no one will clean that stone.

House I grew up in was an original Log 2 story dogtrot style over 200 years old. Family cemetery is still there but I have not been to it in years. Some of the graves date back to the late 1800's. Many are illegible now. As a kid I remember a family from Texas coming to visit to see the cemetery. One of the men died and as the story goes they "Pickled" him until family from Texas could return for the burial. The story of the pickled man was supposedly the ghost that haunted the house. Was it my imagination or was it really haunted? I dont know, but I had friends who would not spend the night there more than once.
My grandfather has 3 brothers buried in the cemetery at Jack McDowell cove in Bankhead. Im sure Mbrock and others know of it. Best I remember, one was still birth, one died shortly after birth, and one was 10-12 and was run over by a wagon wheel and died. My Dad is the genealogist and has visited 100's of cemeteries all over the south. In college at Athens state we did a lab in the cemetery across from the road and I spent days there researching death/birth rates by decade. It was pretty cool to be able to tie those rates back through history based on the world events and diseases at the time.

My grandmother had 10 children and two of them died young......One at birth and one at 6 months old......Cool pics Irish!