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The plantation
A plantation sold in 1846 became a cemetery of nearly 160 acres
The cemetery stands on the former Bonaventure Plantation, originally owned by Colonel John Mullryne. On March 10, 1846, Commodore Josiah Tattnall III sold the 600-acre plantation and its private cemetery to Peter Wiltberger. The first burials took place in 1850. Three years later Wiltberger himself was entombed in a family vault. Today the cemetery holds nearly 160 acres.
Nearly 160acres, the largest of the city's municipal cemeteries
Public
A company formed in 1868, and the city bought it in 1907
Major William H. Wiltberger, the son of Peter, formed the Evergreen Cemetery Company on June 12, 1868. On July 7, 1907, the City of Savannah bought the company, making the cemetery public and changing its name to Bonaventure Cemetery. Greenwich Cemetery became an addition in 1933. The Bonaventure Historical Society, formed in May 1997, has compiled an index of the burials.
John Muir
John Muir slept among the graves for six days and nights in 1867
In 1867 John Muir began his Thousand-Mile Walk to Florida and the Gulf. In October he stayed for six days and nights in the cemetery, sleeping upon graves overnight. It was the safest and cheapest accommodation he could find while he waited for money to be expressed from home. He wrote a lengthy chapter about it, Camping in the Tombs.
Bird Girl
A cover photograph of the Bird Girl statue made the cemetery known
The cover photograph of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, taken by Jack Leigh, showed a sculpture of a young girl, the Bird Girl. It had been in the cemetery, essentially unnoticed, for over 50 years. After the book came out, the sculpture was moved from the cemetery in 1997 for display in Telfair Museums. In late 2014 it was moved to a dedicated space in the Jepson Center for the Arts.
Who is here
A songwriter, a novelist and a governor are among the buried
Burials include the songwriter Johnny Mercer, the novelist Conrad Aiken, Edward Telfair, a governor, his daughter Mary Telfair, a philanthropist and art collector, and the photographer Jack Leigh. The family of Noble Jones of Wormsloe, including his son Noble Wimberly Jones, occupies lot 13. A section holds Spanish-American War veterans, the nation's second-largest area dedicated to those killed in that conflict.
Day 2, morning
Next is Wormsloe Historic Site.
More stories from this trip idea
The words are a retelling of the Wikipedia article Bonaventure Cemetery, and are shared under CC BY-SA 4.0. They are checked against those articles, and a fact that is not in them is left out.