Recent Media Coverage

Oconee Hill: Under Every Stone, A Story...

By: Lee Shearer |  lee.shearer@onlineathens.com |  Story updated at 11:38 pm on 4/4/2009

O

 

Richard Hamm / Special

Charlotte Marshall, far left, leads a group through the Oconee Hill Cemetery during a recent tour.

Richard Hamm / Special

The grave of Young L.G. Harris in Oconee Hill. Young Harris College in North Georgia is named after Harris, a man who gave a lot of money to colleges.

Richard Hamm / Special

The grave of Norma Marks Morris. Marshall considers it one of the loveliest monuments in the cemetery.

Richard Hamm / Special

Marshall explains the symbolism in a gravestone during the tour.

Richard Hamm/Special

Charlotte Marshall talks about Oconee Hill Cemetery during a recent tour.

One plot in Athens' Oconee Hill Cemetery is a source of frustration for Charlotte Marshall.

"Despite a great deal of research, I am no wiser about the group of people buried here than the day I started," said Marshall as she led a tour through the cemetery's rolling hills and stately trees. "These people are holding on to their stories."

But those two women, one named Pilcher, one Dyer, are the exception. For Marshall, every stone has a story, sometimes many stories.

"For a long time I thought this monument was for Alonzo Church, who had the longest tenure of any University of Georgia president. But it is for his daughter," she said.

That daughter, Elizabeth Church Robb, nursed Confederate prisoners of war in Northern prisons during the Civil War, where she contracted a disease and died young, three years after the war ended.

The former POWs took up a collection to pay for her monument, said Marshall, who is wrapping up a book on the cemetery.

"When she died, her obituary ran a full column in the newspaper. Instead of just going over her attributes, which was the usual thing for a woman, it told what she did in life - her accomplishments and achievements," Marshall said.

Her research included reading more than five decades of newspapers - the second half of the 19th century - looking for obituaries and other information about some of the thousands of people whose final resting place is Oconee Hill, a plot of green nestled between the UGA campus near Sanford Stadium and Carr's Hill across the North Oconee River. An 1896 fire destroyed the first 40 years of the cemetery's records.

B-52s guitarist Ricky Wilson lies here; so does Fred Davison and at least four other UGA presidents, four Confederate generals, former UGA football coach Wally Butts and veterans of every American war.

Another grave holds the remains of Howell Cobb, speaker of the U.S. House, secretary of the U.S. Treasury and then the man who convened the meeting in which Southern states declared independence from the United States - maybe the best-known Georgian of his time, Marshall said.

Some are not so famous, or famous in a different way.

Here are the children of Oliver Prince, for whom Prince Avenue is named. He lived in Athens only two and a half years, but died heroically off the coast of North Carolina after a hurricane drove the steamship Home into a reef, Marshall said. Prince and his wife were among the 90 or so who perished.

Not far away is buried Young L.G. Harris, the man for whom Young Harris College is named - a rich, childless man who gave lots of money away to colleges and superannuated Methodist preachers and built many a parsonage for Methodist churches, Marshall said.

"Athens had a lot of 19th century and 20th century citizens who believed in giving back to the community. I've learned that from the cemetery," she said.

A few more steps bring her to the grave of a Georgia governor, Wilson Lumpkin. State officials called Lumpkin out of retirement twice. A white man, Lumpkin led the Cherokees on their tragic Trail of Tears from Georgia to Oklahoma. Many died as the whites forced the Cherokees to leave their homeland in Georgia and neighboring states.

"He was known as a great executive," Marshall said. "I think we have to view him in the context of the times. He felt it was the only chance the Indians had."

Lumpkin also came out of retirement to finish the railroad that gave rise to Chattanooga and Atlanta - at first called Marthasville, for Lumpkin's daughter.

He built a house on a hill on what is now the UGA campus - the Lumpkin House - so he could look down at the grave of his son, who died while a student at UGA.

Each stone, each lot has its own stories, and Marshall hopes to tell as many as she can in her upcoming book.

"The book that I'm finishing up right now will tell everything that we know about each lot," she said.

Together, the stories weave a tapestry of Athens, state and national history.

"You're learning about the schools and the businesses and the factories and all the eccentric characters. It's just a glorious conglomeration," she said. "You get an unorthodox history of Athens."

Marshall is interested in the stories and the history for their own sake, but she's also trying to promote interest in the cemetery.

"It's long been recognized as one of the most beautiful cemeteries in the state of Georgia. It's got great potential," she said.

But many parts are in need of expensive repairs now, some because of vandalism, but more because of the erosion of time and bad weather. Falling trees have smashed several monuments and helped destroy elaborately wrought iron fences that surround some of the family plots.

The cemetery's trustees have little money and repairs can be enormously expensive, Marshall said.

Oconee Hill is actually three separate cemeteries. Besides Oconee Hill, begun by the city of Athens in 1856, a small part was once a burying ground for the Athens Manufacturing Co., which ran a textile mill nearby on the North Oconee.

The third is the Congregation Children of Israel cemetery and is home to one of the cemeteries' loveliest sculptures, Marshall said.

"I want you to look at Norma," said Marshall as she climbed down steps to the grave of Norma Marks Morris, marked with a stone figure of a beautiful young woman. Was the sculpture taken from a photo of Norma in life or a stock figure?

Marshall doesn't know - not yet.

But she hopes one day the lovely young woman will yield her story.

Originally published in the Athens Banner-Herald on Sunday, April 05, 2009

 

 

Oconee Hill Cemetery Walking Tour

Amy Andrews, Education Committee Chair

(reprinted by permission)

  

The beautiful monuments among the rolling hills of the historic Oconee Hill Cemetery memorialize a cross-section of Athens old and new. Many names, such as Lumpkin, Cobb, Church, and Hill, have long been fused with Athens' history, while others, such as Dean Rusk, Wally Butts, Fred Davison, and B-52s guitarist Ricky Wilson, have a place in our more recent memory. The fascinating stories of former Athenians and the similarly intriguing history of their final resting place will be featured in a guided walking tour to be led by historian Charlotte Marshall on November 8th.

 

The Oconee Hill Cemetery was established in 1856 by the city of Athens when the Old Athens Cemetery on Jackson Street had reached capacity. Oconee Hill was designed as a rural cemetery, distinguished by its park-like appearance, with wooded areas, hills, valleys, and a river. Originally only 17 acres in size, the cemetery has grown to almost 100 acres.

 

The cemetery is divided into three distinct sections: (1) the original memorial park, (2) a section that was established after the Civil War by the Congregation Children of Israel (where many prominent Jewish Athenians are interred), and (3)  a section known as the Factory Burying Ground, which was where employees of the nearby Athens Manufacturing Company were buried.

 

The cemetery is public property but was incorporated in 1860, giving all future rights and duties to a group of trustees designated by the city wardens. The original trustees were responsible for lot sales, grounds keeping, and other daily operations, much the same as the current group is today. In Oconee Hill Cemetery's history, the care of the grounds, as well as grave digging, were assigned to a Sexton. Early records of the cemetery were destroyed in a fire, and the earliest known Sexton was James Bisson, who was hired in 1897. The Bisson family was in the quarry business and also owned a granite works near the cemetery. The Bisson family included several skilled sculptors, and they crafted many of the tombstones and memorials at the cemetery. Granite from the family's quarry was also used for the foundation of Athens City Hall.

 

The picturesque Georgian Cottage near the cemetery's entrance was built c. 1880 to house the Sexton and his family, and it was inhabited by more than two generations of the Bisson family until the early 1980s. The Friends of Oconee Hill Cemetery have worked with the cemetery's Board of Trustees to restore the cottage, successfully raising funds for a $75,000 matching grant. The restoration of the cottage was recognized with a 2008 Historic Preservation Award for Outstanding Rehabilitation from ACHF. The beautifully restored and furnished Sexton's House is now used as a reception area for grieving families and will be featured on the tour.

 

Charlotte Marshall, who will lead the tour, has studied the cemetery for over 25 years and is working on the second edition of a book on tombstone inscriptions from the cemetery. The tour offers a rare opportunity to partake of Charlotte's knowledge and enthusiasm for the cemetery and its history and to learn little-known details about this burial ground and the lives of the remarkable people who are interred there.

 

If you would like your name put on a waiting list for a tour, please call 706-353-1801 or e-mail achf@bellsouth.net. Ticket prices: $10 ACHF Members; $15 Non-members.

 

The Foundation would like to thank the Oconee Hill Cemetery Trustees and the Friends of OHC for their help and cooperation.

 

---

 

Burial plots for UGA Lettermen available near stadium...

Lettermen’s association to unveil ‘Bulldog Haven’, an area within cemetery next to stadium

Read More...

---

June 2008

       - Charlotte Marshall

 

Charlotte Marshall is undeniably the most knowledgeable historian on Oconee Hill.  She has spent decades researching its rich history.  Her presentations on its history has delighted many of those lucky enough to hear her descriptions of the many humorous and interesting stories behind the graves.

 

A native of far-away Seminole County, Charlotte Thomas Marshall has lived in Athens for more than four decades, and for much of that time she has delved deeply into the history of her adopted hometown.
"I'm interested in the people who made Athens the town I so enjoy living in," says Marshall. "I like to tell the present residents of Athens about those who came before them."
Marshall's overriding historical passion is the Oconee Hill Cemetery, located off East Campus Road behind Sanford Stadium. Besides editing the tombstone inscriptions in the oldest part of the cemetery and taking visitors and residents alike on tours of the grounds, she helped establish the Friends of Oconee Hill Cemetery and was the first woman to serve as a cemetery trustee.

"When I married, the family I married into was very interested in the cemetery," says Marshall. "At first, my interests were merely beautification, but it certainly has evolved since then. There are a lot of interesting people there, and I've spent a lot of time researching their lives. The cemetery is a microcosm of Athens history. And it's not just Athens leaders who are buried there; there's a host of state and national leaders in Oconee Hill."
 
Among those interred at Oconee Hill are five former UGA presidents (or chancellors, as they were once known), four Confederate generals (and veterans of all wars fought by Americans), numerous Congressmen, former UGA football coach Wally Butts, former UGA football star and coach Bill Hartman, former U.S. Secretary of State Dean Rusk and B-52's guitarist Ricky Wilson.

The 100-acre Oconee Hill Cemetery (known as Oconee Cemetery until 1860), which opened in 1856, will be among the subjects discussed at the Southern Garden Heritage Conference, scheduled for Feb. 15 and 16 at the State Botanical Garden of Georgia. The annual conference is sponsored by the Botanical Garden, the Garden Club of Georgia and the UGA School of Environmental Design.

Marshall's interests not only lie in the cemetery's rich heritage, but also in its attractive design.
"Oconee Hill is a natural landscape cemetery, which was a concept begun in Europe," she says. "The first such cemetery in the United States was Mount Auburn in Cambridge, Mass., which opened in 1830. A natural landscape cemetery is park-like and wooded with a grassy meadow and usually with a river running through it. That's precisely what you see with Oconee Hill."
The cemetery is actually made up of three distinct parts, says Marshall. The original 90-acre memorial park, a portion established not long after the Civil War by the Congregation Children of Israel (where many prominent Jewish Athenians are interred), and a section known as the Factory Burying Ground, which was where employees of nearby Athens Manufacturing Company were buried.

"I moved to Athens from Macon 41 years ago, and at that time, the slogan for Macon was 'Macon on the Move' and the slogan for Athens was 'Advancing Athens,'" says Marshall. "I think it's fair to say that it was 'Athens on the Move' as there have been people who were literally moved across town from other cemeteries to Oconee Hill. And there have been a number of people who have been moved from one part of the cemetery to another."
After having completed one book on tombstone inscriptions at the cemetery, Marshall says she's working on a second edition she hopes to finish soon.

"I'm mainly making notes from obituaries to plug in facts to match up with inscriptions," says Marshall, who adds there are still plenty of burial plots available at Oconee Hill. "And there are many buried with no inscribed markers, so I'm also trying to document their presence. There are so many people there to document."

 

Back to Top