Colonial Park Cemetery
Introduction
Text-to-speech Audio
Images
Colonial Park Cemetery's Entrance
Colonial Park Cemetery
Gravestones in Colonial Park
Colonial Park Cemetery
Colonial Park Cemetery at night.
Backstory and Context
Text-to-speech Audio
Established in 1750, Colonial Park Cemetery grew to six acres by 1789 and remains that size today. The cemetery is the oldest cemetery in Savannah, and no one has been buried there since 1853. The cemetery was the primary cemetery used by the residents from 1750 to 1853. After 1853, Laurel Grove Cemetery became the main cemetery for the city.
The cemetery is the final resting place for Button Gwinnett, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Major General Nathaniel Greene was also interned here in 1786, although his body was moved from the Graham family vault to the Nathaniel Greene Monument in Johnson Square.
An epidemic of Yellow Fever caused 700 to be interned at the cemetery in the early 1820s. In the final years of the Civil War, Union soldiers used Colonial Park Cemetery as a campsite. During this time, some of the soldiers decided to have a little fun, altering headstones by carving different dates into some of the headstones. Today, visitors often enjoy searching for these altered gravestones.