Laurel Grove Cemetery

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Laurel Grove Cemetery is a historic American cemetery in Savannah, Georgia. Located in the city's midtown, it includes the original cemetery for whites (now known as Laurel Grove North) and a companion burial ground (called Laurel Grove South) reserved for African American slaves and free people of color. Though less well-known than Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery, Laurel Grove is considered the city's most important nineteenth-century cemetery.

Planned as early as 1818, Laurel Grove first opened for burials in 1853. The original cemetery has countless graves of many of Savannah's Confederate veterans of the American Civil War. Laurel Grove South holds the graves of thousands of slaves and free blacks from coastal Georgia.

With lush plantings and beautifully carved stones, both sections of Laurel Grove Cemetery resemble more famous Victorian-era graveyards such as Green-Wood in New York City and Père Lachaise in Paris. Administrators of Laurel Grove have recently begun an ambitious plan to computerize the cemetery's burial records.

[edit] Notable interments

(Alphabetized by last name)

• Francis Stebbins Bartow, Confederate politician]], and Confederate States Army officer during the American Civil War
• John M. Berrien, United States Senator from the state of Georgia.
• William Bellinger Bulloch, U.S. Senator from Georgia and relative of U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt.
• Robert Milledge Charlton, Senator representing Georgia (U.S. State).
• Stephen Elliott, 37th bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (ECUSA).
• William Bennett Fleming, United States Representative from Georgia.
• Jeremy Francis, Confederate States Army General.
• William Washington Gordon, politician and businessman, he co-founded and served as the first president of the Central Railroad and Banking Company (now the Central of Georgia Railroad).
• Julian Hartridge, United States Representative from Georgia.
• Juliette Gordon Low, founder of the Girl Scouts of the USA.
• Florence Martus, also known as The Waving Girl, the unofficial greeter of all ships that entered and left the Port of Savannah.
• Lafayette McLaws, U.S. Army officer and a Confederate general in the American Civil War.
• John Millen, United States Representative and lawyer from Georgia.
• Phoebe Pember, Confederate nurse at Chimborazo Hospital in Richmond, Virginia, during the American Civil War.
• Philip Phillips, lawyer, politician and U.S. Representative from Alabama
• Moxley Sorrel, Confederate States Army officer and historian of the Confederacy.
• William Henry Stiles, United States Representative from Georgia.
• Thomas Manson Norwood, United States Senator and Representative from Georgia.
• George Welshman Owens, United States Representative and lawyer from Georgia.
• James Lord Pierpont, writer and composer of the song Jingle Bells
• Joseph Wasden, Confederate officer in the American Civil War.
• James Moore Wayne, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States and a United States Representative from Georgia
• Dr. Richard Wayne, mayor of Savannah, Georgia for four terms.

[edit] References

• Find A Grave listing for Laurel Grove Cemetery
• Official History of Rose Hill Cemetery