Unearth tales from the past at Columbia’s historic cemeteries

The best of Columbia’s history isn’t all above ground.

This week, Historic Columbia resumes its popular seasonal tours at Elmwood Cemetery, allowing visitors to see a whole new side of nearly 170 years of history in the capital city.

“It was established in the 1850s and reflects the prevailing interests of people who were crafting burial grounds that embraced nature,” John Sherrer, director of cultural resources for Historic Columbia, said of Elmwood Cemetery. “What I love about Elmwood is the amazing array of burial plots whose monuments reflect certain aesthetics and mourning rituals for different times, from the mid-19th to early 21st centuries.”

Folks can learn about some of that buried history on the second Thursday monthly, beginning Thursday, April 13, on the “The Secrets from the Grave” and “The Moonlight Cemetery” tours offered by Historic Columbia. Tours run through September.

Guides in period costume share stories spanning nearly 170 years, some etched in stone on the markers and headstones found within Elmwood’s acres of carefully planned grounds.

“Each day, thousands of commuters drive past Elmwood Cemetery without realizing what a historic treasure it is in the heart of downtown,” said James Quint, Historic Columbia’s director of education. “These tours will uncover incredible stories of life, love and intrigue hidden in one of Columbia’s oldest cemeteries.”

Among some of the facts:

▪ More than 25,000 people have been buried at Elmwood.

▪ World War II Medal of Honor recipient Lt. General James Dozier was buried here in 1974.

▪ Professional baseball player Walter “Kirby” Higbe, a starting pitcher for the Chicago Cubs, Phillies, Brooklyn Dodgers and New York Giants from 1937-50, also is buried here.

But Elmwood isn’t the only burial ground in Columbia with history to share. .

“One of the takeaways in terms of cemeteries and burial grounds is that they often tell us a great deal by what is left on inscriptions,” Sherrer said. “And not just about the people who are memorialized but about the people doing the memorializing.”

“The challenge is for people to go and look beyond those people who have always been noted and written about. I encourage people to seek out not just the typical celebrated burials, but others as well.”

Randolph Cemetery

West of Elmwood Cemetery

Established in 1872, this graveyard was named after African-American senator Benjamin Franklin Randolph, who was assassinated in Abbeville and buried elsewhere in Columbia in 1868. A group of influential African-Americans bought land from Elmwood and established Randolph Cemetery to honor Randolph, whose remains were moved to this site.

“There is a lot of history that is significant for Columbia, the state and the South here,” said Staci Richey, a board member for Randolph.

The Reconstruction-era cemetery contains the graves of many of the state’s most important African-American leaders, including 14 black legislators from the Reconstruction era. It also has the graves of African-Americans from all walks of life, including generations of families.

The cemetery had fallen to disrepair until a group formed in the 1980s to maintain it.

Trinity Episcopal

1100 Sumter St.

Ancient oaks and magnolias shade Trinity’s churchyard, where several historical South Carolinians are buried, including Revolutionary War heroes Gen. Wade Hampton, Gen. Peter Horry, and Pvt. Robert Stark; Dr. Thomas Cooper, president of the South Carolina College (now the University of South Carolina) and friend of Thomas Jefferson; Henry Timrod, poet laureate of the Confederacy; six South Carolina governors; and eight bishops of the Episcopal Church.

Washington Street United Methodist

1401 Washington St.

Graves in the courtyard garden date to the early 1800s and include the tombstone of William Maxwell Martin, who many claim was the first casualty of the Civil War. The tombstone appears to be broken, but actually it was left “unfinished,” symbolizing his death at an early age. A fragment of stone is mounted on the wall. This fragment is part of a tablet placed in the church in 1857, along with two other memorial tablets, and is part of the Rev. William M. Kennedy’s tablet. It is all that was left after the burning of the church in February 1865.

First Baptist

1306 Hampton St.

Buried close to the original church’s front entrance are the remains of one of Columbia’s earliest photographers, Richard Wearn, whose small collection of images taken in 1865 show the capital city after much of it burned following the Union Army’s occupation.

First Presbyterian

1324 Marion St.

According to the church website, the state legislature established the land on which the church stands as a public burial ground in 1798 and the oldest plot dates to 1804. Among the notable people interred here are Ann Pamela Cunningham, who helped found the Mount Vernon Ladies Association of the Union (which led to the preservation of George Washington’s home in 1860); Ainsley Hall, an influential English merchant whose residence (today’s Robert Mills House) was saved from demolition in 1961 after Historic Columbia was founded; and the parents of Woodrow Wilson, the United States’ 28th president.

There are also ministers, physicians, judges, merchants, legislators, government officials and university presidents, as well as soldiers of the Revolution, the Mexican War and the Civil War. The tombstones record immigrants from many birthplaces: Scotland, England, Ireland, Connecticut, Vermont, and Pennsylvania.

St. Peter’s

1529 Assembly St.

This cemetery, dating from 1840, is at the rear of the church and is listed in the National Register. Among those buried here is John R. Niernsee (1823-85), a Confederate major and primary architect of the State House.

Beth Shalom (House of Peace) Cemetery

1300 block of Whaley Street

In 1883, members of Columbia’s Jewish community founded the Hebrew Cemetery Society of Columbia as an alternative to the Hebrew Benevolent Society’s cemetery, which had been established in 1822. The organization bought a 4-acre tract bounded by Indigo (Whaley), Lower (Heyward), Marion and Sumter streets as a free cemetery for Hebrew burials. In 1896, the Society sold 3 acres to W.B. Smith Whaley for textile mill development. By 1911, the Society deeded cemetery oversight to the Beth Shalom (House of Peace) synagogue. Early burials included Orthodox Jews from Columbia and elsewhere. This site later became identified as a place specifically for synagogue members.

Ebenezer Lutheran

1301 Richland St.

This cemetery dates back to the 1800s.

This story was originally published April 12, 2017 at 10:50 AM with the headline "Unearth tales from the past at Columbia’s historic cemeteries."