COLONIAL PARK CEMETERY GOD’S ACRE TOUR

Tour Colonial Park Cemetery in Savannah

“Hedged in by city streets and tradition blest lies a sleeping township…”

– Elfrida De Renne Barrow

This tour is conducted by Savannah native and some say, raconteur reborn, Lazarus Bone. His past includes whaling, gold mining, jungle expedition leader, Kiev Orchestra violinist, war-time photographer and now and again, stage coach driver on Old Augusta Road. Even so, you’ll be left asking, “Who is Lazarus Bone?” All we can say is that no one can tell God’s Acre’s 10,000 stories like Mr. Bone can.

God’s Acre or “that old burying ground” is located in the heart of the town grid of 24 city squares, there sits an unofficial 25th called Colonial Park Cemetery and serves as the biggest story spot in the whole Historic District! The grounds defy time as the oldest patch of public land one can visit in Savannah and where you’ll see and touch materials far older than the Victorian city that now surrounds!

Located in the heart of the town grid of 24 city squares, there sits an unofficial 25th called Colonial Park Cemetery and serves as the biggest story spot in the whole Historic District! The grounds defy time as the oldest patch of public land one can visit in Savannah and where you’ll see and touch materials far older than the Victorian city that now surrounds!

During Savannah’s primitive hours, this is where every town meeting, picnic, wedding, duel and public execution was conducted! Eventually it would be the final resting place of warriors of Independence, duelists, merchants, priests, paupers, soldiers and just about every character that gave blood, sweat, and tears to the early colony and later nation. Sadly, it would be the mass graves of thousands of Yellow Fever victims that resulted in the closure of the place in 1853. Had the Daughters of The American Revolution and Columbia University not saved it from demolition in 1902, there would be no Colonial Park Cemetery tour for us to give you!

Discussions will include the adjoining “Negro Burial Ground,” Poet Conrad Aiken’s Birthplace, The Old City Jail, dueling grounds, The Hanging Tree and the fascinating ritual use of the cemetery by area Root Doctors.

Tour includes:

• Savannah’s Oldest Extant Cemetery, c 1750
• Origin of “Savannah, the city built on top of its own dead”
• 2 Declaration of Independence Signers
• Teddy Roosevelt’s Great, Great Grandfather
• Nathanael Greene & George Washington Greene
• Encampments by both British Army & Union Army
• Mass Yellow Fever Graves
• Dueling Grounds
• Gullah Geechee Ritual Grounds & Burial Areas
• Old City Jail & Poet Conrad Aiken Discussions