Old City Cemetery (Columbus, Georgia)

Old City Cemetery
U.S. National Register of Historic Places
Location	Linwood Blvd., Columbus, Georgia
Built	1828
Architect	Edward Lloyd Thomas
Architectural style	Gothic, Egyptian Revival, Other
MPS	Columbus MRA
NRHP Reference #	80001188[1]
Added to NRHP	September 29, 1980

The Old City Cemetery, also known as Linwood Cemetery, is a 28.7 acres (11.6 ha)^[1] cemetery on what is now Linwood Boulevard, in Columbus, Georgia. It dates from 1828, when the town of Columbus was founded, or before. It appears in surveyor Edward Lloyd Thomas's original plan for the city. The cemetery consists mostly of rectangular family plots bordered by iron fences or walls made of brick or granite, accessed by a main east-west corridor and perpendicular lanes. It includes both simple and elaborate tombstones, some displaying Egyptian Revival or Gothic styles.^[2]

Altar tombs at the cemetery

The cemetery was given the name "Linwood" in 1894 by city council resolution, probably to honor Columbus author Caroline Lee Hentz whose works include Ernest Linwood, an 1856 book.^[2]

It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1980.^[1]

According to its 1978 nomination, the majority of prominent Columbus persons are buried there. Its burials include more than 200 Confederate Army soldiers representing every state in the Confederacy.^[2]

Thomas's own son was an early burial, as he died and was buried in the cemetery in 1828 while Thomas was amidst his work surveying, but apparently the grounds include earlier marked and unmarked graves of "'early traders, river people, and Indians.'"^[2]

Notable burials include:

• Dr. John Pemberton, formulator of Coca-Cola^[2]
• Gen. Henry Lewis Benning, namesake of Fort Benning^[2]
• Reverend Thomas Goulding^[2]
• Leslie DeVotie, founder of Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity^[2]
• Ulysses Lewis, Columbus's first mayor, also brother-in-law of George Washington^[2]

References

1. National Park Service (2010-07-09). "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service.
2. Nancy Alexander, Roger Harris, and Janice P. Biggers (1978). "Georgia AHP Survey-Inventory: Historic Resources of Columbus, Muscogee County, Georgia: Linwood Cemetery / Old (City) Cemetery" (PDF). National Park Service. Retrieved August 23, 2016.