I do not know when the cemetery was founded, but based on the markers and death dates, I believe it was started right after the Civil War. There’s a mixture of Victorian and handmade markers.
While many cemeteries have separate sections for Black and white people that are remnants of segregation, this is the only cemetery I’ve visited where there are physical markers denoting the the Black and white sides.
Still, an active cemetery, the Jonesboro City Cemetery highlights a combination of Victorian monuments, handmade markers, and manufactured ones. It also illustrates that it was a segregated cemetery. The Black section sits at the back of the cemetery, and it has several markers showing men and women who were born into slavery but lived past the end of the Civil War.
Designed by Richard Cecchini, the Sheppard monument represents Christ at Gethsemane. It’s listed on the Smithsonian’s Save Outdoor Sculpture database.
Orphans Cemetery is located near Eastman in Dodge County, Georgia. It is a small, well-maintained cemetery that features the beautiful Williamson Mausoleum.
Albert Genavie Williamson and his five younger, orphaned brothers moved to Eastman around 1873. Williamson was an entrepreneur who donated the land for the Orphans Christian Church and cemetery.
According to the National Register of Historic Places nomination, A. G. Williamson had this monument built out by the Cordele Consolidated Marble Company after meeting a monument salesman. Made out of of Carrara marble, it was sculpted from a family photograph. It features Mr. Williamson, his wife Martha, and his nephew, Jay Gould Williamson. Interestingly, Jay is buried on St. Simon’s in the Christ Church graveyard.
Outside of the artistic merit of the monument, it’s apparently unusual to find a funerary monument of three people together like this one.
It was put on the National Register of Historic Places in 1997.
