The King Cemetery is located off Brighton Road in the community of Carnigan. Land was purchased by Lizzie King. The cemetery is still active.
King Cemetery of Carnigan, Georgia
Category Archives: Vernacular Headstones
Mitchell Grove Baptist Church-Cuthbert, Georgia
Mitchell Grove Baptist Church is located on a dirt road south of Cuthbert, Georgia. There is not much printed information on the church. According to FindAGrave, the earliest burial was in 1893. A historic resources survey indicates the church was built in 1894. I believe that is the structure that is in overgrowth. The double front doors and multiple windows on the side of the building indicate a church.
The single-tower white building is in good condition and is still used by the congregation. Obituaries indicate that the cemetery is still active and has remained active throughout the church’s history. The cemetery has a mixture of vernacular and commercial headstones.
The Year in Review-Top Ten Posts of 2024
Thank you for joining me in my travels around the South. It’s been a great year of wandering backroads and a few main ones. If I learned anything, it is that people love abandoned houses, buildings with unexpected histories, and (in)famous graves.
Smith Hill Cemetery: A Historic Burial Ground in Talbotton, Georgia
Smith Hill Cemetery is located in the southwest part of Talbotton, Georgia. Like many cemeteries in Georgia, it illustrates a community’s history and funerary art changes through its landscape and the types of headstones found throughout the cemetery.
Located on a hill, the cemetery is almost completely overgrown except for specific cleared areas for more recent burials. It is said that this cemetery started as a cemetery for the enslaved, but this is frequently said about overgrown cemeteries that are a final resting place that serves the Black community. For this one, it is certainly possible because Talbot County’s 1860 Slave Census shows over 4,000 people held in bondage, and there was a plantation in the area. However, I did not locate any research that confirmed this. Still, it is a historic cemetery active since the late 1800s.
What is known is that this has served the Black community as a final burying place for several generations. Researching old obituaries, I found that church members from the nearby St. Phillips AME Church, Shady Grove Baptist Church, and other area churches are buried here. Some common names in the cemetery are Trice, Kimbrough, and Martin.
There are many influences on markers, from Victorian-influenced ones to handmade ones, field stones, ironwork, and modern markers. A common form of handmade headstones in Georgia is the rounded concrete one. Often, marbles are used as a decorative addition to the marker. They are some of my favorite ones to find in a cemetery. The concrete headstone of the Riley family is a new favorite. The combination of the marbles and the line drawings makes it incredibly unique.
Additional markers in the cemetery include a painted blue Eldren Bailey marker, fieldstones, and a homemade obelisk with name plates made of professionally made marble. More recent burials use a common granite form found in almost any cemetery in the United States. However, a more recent handmade brick crypt was made for Willie Battle.
If you are into exploring cemeteries, don’t skip the lesser-visited or overgrown ones. You never know what you might discover. Some people are a bit more daring than I am and will visit during high snake and tick season, but Smith Hill Cemetery is the perfect cemetery to visit in the fall and winter once there is a chill in the air.
Historic Piney Grove Cemetery Hidden in Atlanta‘s Buckhead
Piney Grove Cemetery is the last vestige of a historic Black community in Buckhead, Atlanta, Georgia. It is now surrounded by condos and within earshot of the Georgia 400 Highway. It’s only accessible by a grassy path along the backside of the condos.
It is believed the community dates back to the 1820s. At one time, the Piney Grove Missionary Baptist Church stood at the top of the cemetery’s hill. A storm destroyed it in 1996.
These aerial photos show how the land was built around the church in the cemetery. The 1993 aerial photo shows how close Georgia 400 is to the church and the cemetery. By 2002, the condominiums come into view around the cemetery.
For the past several years, a dedicated group of volunteers has been trying to reclaim the cemetery from nature. Many of the volunteers have ancestors who once attended the church and have family members buried in the cemetery.
Mount Ararat Cemetery of Nashville, Tennessee
Mount Ararat Cemetery was the first burial ground for Black citizens in Nashville, Tennessee. Opened in April 1869, the property was purchased for $5,000 by the Colored Sons of Relief Number One and the Colored Benevolent Society.
Over 15,000 burials are in the cemetery. Many of these are unmarked, but some markers showcase the wealth and prominence of some of the individuals.
