Located in Georgia’s Old Capitol of Milledgeville (Baldwin County, Georgia), Memory Hill is a lovely and historically significant city cemetery. Memory Hill is located at 300 Franklin Street and occupies one of the original four city squares reserved when the city was incorporated in 1803.
Date of visit: December 2020
March 2021
♦ The cemetery is well taken care of with minimal damage or vandalism.
♦ Burials from approximately 1802 to present
♦ Notable residents include:
Flannery O’Connor Elizabeth Jordan Alexander Sanford
Elizabeth Taylor Benjamin Jordan Ezra Evans
Jacob Hentz Martha Tucker George Murph
Lamar Family Samuel Talmage Edwin Jemison
Bill Miner Patrick Kane Benjamin Simmons
Carl Vinson James McMillan Charles Herty
E.P. Lugand Dixie Haygood Nick & Bruno Bonner
O.E. Pace Mary Adams Emmie Nisbet
Frances Cowles James Prosser Ezra & Cornelia Daggett
Lizzie Whilden & 48 Statesmen
♦ Notable monument carvers:
R.E. Launitz, NY
H. Fitzsimmons, Cherokee GA
James B. Artope, Macon GA
E.P. Lugand, Milledgeville GA
M. Davis, Nashua NH
To find out more about Memory Hill and to download a Walking Tour Brochure
From the Taphophilia Files : Milledgeville's Memory Hill & Patrick Kane
Milledgeville’s Memory Hill Cemetery and the city’s original Methodist Church were both established about 1810 on South Square - one of the original four 20-acre squares planned out for the city in 1807. Shortly thereafter other churches were built on Statehouse Square, so the Methodist Church eventually also moved to Statehouse Square, leaving its 20 acres to the cemetery. Since then, what once was the “Milledgeville City Cemetery” has been renamed “Memory Hill Cemetery” and has grown to encompass 30 acres. Many stories reside with its buried residents, and I have documented over 80 signed monuments within the cemetery.
Patrick Kane’s tombstone ledger slab (above) lies in this cemetery, alone in the corner of East Side Section H. His stone is signed by Artope & Son faintly in the lower right hand corner. Part of his epitaph reads, “Aged about 50 years at the time of his death and shot down by a Federal Soldier on the 20th day of Nov. 1864 on the advance of Gen. Sher-man’s Army on Milledgeville.”
Upon researching Kane, I discovered he was the only person “violently” killed during Sherman’s occupation of Milledgeville. Kane was not a Confederate soldier, but accounts of his death explains that he was the garden planner and overseer of William Jarratt’s property. When Sherman came through the town, Kane passionately defended the property, and was promptly shot by Sherman’s soldiers.
The Jarratt house “The Cedars” (above) still exists at 131 N. Columbia Street in Milledgeville, although the property no longer encompasses the entire block. Interestingly, the house’s edifice has been completely turned around to face west. The cedars that the house’s name refers to lined the curved drive in the front of the house. Those trees and drive are now in the back yard. I wonder if its current residency would defend the property as passionately as Patrick Kane did in 1854….
Comments