What do you like to tour on vacation? There are always
historical sites, new restaurants, or unique spots that you can’t ever find
anywhere else. However, one of the things the girls and I like to tour through
are the ancient cemeteries. It always fascinates me what you can learn about an
area just by strolling through the local graveyards. Did a plague hit at one
point? Some major catastrophe? How many people were of the same name? History
is quite often revealed through the tombstones.
It’s also a fun place to scare the unsuspecting. When our
oldest was about four, we took a family trip to St. Augustine and walked around
the historic district. In order to get to a shop my mother wanted to get to we
had to pass through a cemetery. Of course, we had to slow down and look around.
Nathan, my father and myself stuck together while the rest wandered around
browsing the dates and names on the tombstones. At one point we came upon a
grave with a flat slab of stone over it, but time and the weather had done its
damage and the lid to the concrete coffin had been pushed up and to the side. A
small hole had been created that allowed you to see down into the darkness of
the grave. Nathan, my four-year-old, was staring intently down into the hole
and I couldn’t help myself. I leaned down and whispered, “Look. One got out.”
His eyes went wide and he clung to his grandfather’s hand
with all of his might. “Can we go get a soda now?”
Of course, my dad chuckled and said sure. Char slugged me in
the shoulder and called me a bully. However, it did not stop our cemetery
wandering, not even Nathan.
On our recent trip to Savannah, we walked through the Colonial Park
Cemetery and saw the weather- worn tombstones and family vaults that polka
dotted the ground. Some of the carvings had been faded and worn down by the
elements, but still there were names to be found and plaques had been put up to
help those with the graveyard bent to find facts that would make the trip
worthwhile. The tombstones varied from the normal ones that stood at the head
of the gravesite to flat on the ground slabs and even large vaults that piled
the family members on top of each other like sardines in a can. As I stared at
the vaults I wondered if the family had been that close in life, because they
were now stuck to each other in death.
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| Does this mean he never finished his prison term? |
The cemetery was established for the Christ Church Parish
around 1750 but about forty years later in 1789 it was opened up to all denominations.
I suppose after death there should be no discrimination. The Yellow Fever
epidemic of 1820 saw 700 people buried there and many who had died due to
dueling deaths, which ranged from 1740 to 1877, also found their final resting
place there. However, it was closed in 1853 before the Civil War began and no
confederate soldiers can be found there. Union soldiers ransacked and looted
the graveyard during the Union occupation of Savannah and it is rumored they
even changed some of the dates on the headstones.
Of course, as with most cemeteries, Colonial Park has its
share of ghost stories. One of the most popular is that of Rene Asche
Rondolier. Rene was an orphan, severely disfigured, who seemed to always be at
the cemetery. When the bodies of two girls had been found in the cemetery, Rene
was the obvious villain since he practically lived in the cemetery. Citizens
grabbed him, dragged him out to the swamps where they lynched him and left him
for dead. However, afterward, bodies continued to show up in the cemetery.
People now accused Rene’s ghost.
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| The Circle of Life |
We toured and wandered, snapping pictures and reading
tombstones, until we made it out the other side and could safely continue our
journey.
However, just on the other side of the metal gate that
surrounded the Colonial Park Cemetery was, to me, the oddest site–a playground.
I just stared. Wasn’t it odd to have a children’s playground outside of a
cemetery? It just seemed to be a tad on the morbid side to me, but others said
it was a great display of the circle of life. It is rumored that the playground
resides on what was once the dueling grounds of Savannah when dueling was
legal. I imagine that a playground is a much better use of the land than a
killing field for men who couldn’t solve their problems with one another other
than killing someone. Still, it seems off to me.
We said goodbye to those buried in Colonial Park Cemetery as
we continued our trek to our next tourist destination–St. John’s Cathedral. It
made sense to me, visiting a church after a graveyard. Usually it is the other
way around. Of course, nowadays it seems as if they are one and the same, but
that’s another post for another time.
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