When most people hear “Augusta Recreation and Parks,” they think of playgrounds, ball fields, walking trails, and community centers. It might be surprising to learn that our department is also closely connected to some of Augusta’s oldest burial grounds. Over the past several weeks, we have updated and expanded the city’s cemetery pages. The goals were simple. Make information easier to find. Make the history more accurate. And help people see these cemeteries not only as places of grief, but as places of memory, art, and community.
First, a clear note about who does what. Augusta Recreation and Parks is responsible for the administrative side of the three active city cemeteries: Magnolia, Cedar Grove, and West View. Our staff schedules services, supports families and funeral homes, and maintains cemetery records and historic documentation. Daily grounds work is different. Routine tasks such as mowing, trimming around markers, and general clean up are performed by crews from the Richmond County Correctional Institution. If you see a maintenance issue in one of Augusta’s cemeteries, the best way to report it is through Augusta 311. They pass the request directly to the right team so it can be addressed as quickly as possible.
Cemeteries as outdoor history books
Augusta’s cemeteries tell the story of the city from the early 1800s to today. Each burial ground reflects a different part of that story, from early riverfront days and military posts to mill villages, hilltop neighborhoods, and long standing African American communities. The updated Cemetery History page now gives a short overview of each cemetery, along with its address and a summary of how it came to be.
Magnolia Cemetery began as part of a plantation on the edge of the city and grew into a large public burial ground that covers about sixty acres. It includes sections for different faiths and community groups, and even has a brick wall that once formed part of Augusta’s Civil War defenses. Today it is recognized as one of the most historic cemeteries in Georgia.
Cedar Grove Cemetery opened in the early nineteenth century and became one of Augusta’s principal burial places for African Americans. The oldest marked graves date from the 1830s, and many early burials are unmarked, especially those of enslaved people. Over time, Cedar Grove became the resting place for freedmen, veterans, educators, clergy, and community leaders. It is often described as one of the most important African American historic cemeteries in the state.
West View Cemetery opened around 1900 to serve families from the nearby Harrisburg mill communities. Many people buried there worked in the textile mills and factories that helped drive Augusta’s growth in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Later, West View also became a burial place for veterans and civic leaders. Its lanes and family plots preserve the everyday stories of working people who shaped modern Augusta.
Beyond these three city operated cemeteries, the updated pages also highlight other historic sites that are closely tied to Augusta’s past.
Arsenal Cemetery sits beside the grounds of the old Augusta Arsenal on the hill. The Arsenal was originally built near the Savannah River in the early nineteenth century but was moved to a healthier site in Summerville in the late 1820s after deadly fever outbreaks. The cemetery holds the graves of soldiers who served at the post, their families, and a few civilians. When the Arsenal closed in the mid twentieth century and the land became part of a college campus, the cemetery remained in place. In 1959, the burial ground was formally transferred to the City of Augusta.
Rollersville Cemetery, on the 1600 block of Hicks Street, began as a private burial ground for the Huntington family. The first recorded burial is that of William S. Trainum, an orphan who died in 1827 while rescuing others from a fire. For many years his was the only grave. In the mid nineteenth century, family burials resumed on the site. Over time the cemetery came under city control and developed distinct sections, including an African American section in active use by the late 1800s. Surviving records for Rollersville are preserved with the other cemetery files at Magnolia.
Fitten Street Cemetery, sometimes called Summerville Cemetery or Summerville Colored Cemetery in older records, serves the Sand Hills and Summer Hill communities. It stands within the Sand Hills Historic District and has been known by several names over time, which reflects its long and layered history. According to local tradition and surviving documents, African American residents purchased the land in the early twentieth century, around 1906, to create a cemetery for their neighborhood. The oldest marked grave dates to 1850, so the site almost certainly saw use even earlier. In 1998, Augusta Richmond County voted to take on general maintenance of the cemetery, and recent efforts focus on clearing overgrowth, documenting burials, and restoring this important community space.
Together, these cemeteries form a network of outdoor archives. They preserve the stories of enslaved people and freedmen, soldiers and officers, mill workers and business owners, clergy and teachers, children and elders. The updated pages are meant to make those stories easier to find and easier to understand.
Legends, duels, and monuments that speak
Magnolia Cemetery is especially rich in stories. Some are carefully documented. Others survive as local legend. All of them help visitors see the cemetery as more than rows of stones.
One of the most famous tales is known as “A Suicide’s Curse” or “The Curse of Wylly Barron.” Barron was a nineteenth century gambler in Augusta who ran a high stakes game in a local hotel. One night, a man who had lost everything to him took his own life. Before he died, he cursed Barron and said he hoped Barron would die without even having a grave to shelter him. The story goes that Barron was deeply shaken. He gave more to charity, placed stricter rules on his gambling room, and, most importantly, had a granite mausoleum built for himself in Magnolia Cemetery many years before his death. Barron’s tomb was built in 1851, about twenty-four years before he died in 1875. When he passed away at the age of eighty-eight, his fortune was gone. There was no money left to buy a coffin. His body was placed in the mausoleum without one, the keyhole was sealed, and the key was thrown into the Savannah River. In that way, the curse seemed to come partly true. Barron had a shelter, but not the kind of burial he might have imagined. His mausoleum still stands today and is one of the most talked about stops for visitors who enjoy a good ghost story or moral lesson.
Another dramatic story tied to Magnolia is Augusta’s last duel. In the 1870s, Irish immigrant Charles Dawson Tilly became the subject of local gossip involving a widowed society woman named Mary DeL’Aigle. To defend her reputation, Tilly accepted a duel with George Ratcliffe. The two men crossed the Savannah River to the Sand Bar Ferry area, a common site for duels, and faced each other with pistols in December 1875. Tilly was shot and died the next day. Ratcliffe claimed self-defense and was acquitted. Tilly was buried in Magnolia Cemetery, in the DeLaigle family section. His grave is listed among the cemetery’s notable burials and continues to draw interest from visitors who are curious about the days when matters of honor could have life or death consequences.
Beyond these stories, Magnolia is filled with monuments that feel almost alive. One of the most striking is the statue of Sophie de L’Aigle d’Antignac, who died at the age of twenty-seven. Her family had a full-length marble figure of her carved in a detailed gown and placed under a stone canopy at her grave. The statue was so realistic that it became something of a local landmark. Today a replica stands at the cemetery while the original is kept safe, but the effect is still deeply moving.
Another unusual marker is the upright cannon that marks the grave of John Martin, a soldier of the American Revolution. The cannon turns his grave into a kind of battlefield memorial, reminding visitors that this quiet place is linked to war and national history as well as to local stories.
There are also many smaller details that say a lot with very little. Angels, lilies, circles, crossed hands, broken columns, and weeping willows appear on stones throughout Magnolia. An hourglass can hint at the passing of time. A broken column can suggest a life cut short. In the sections where children and orphans are buried, lambs and small angels mark many graves. One especially touching monument remembers eleven-year-old Louis Segal, whose grave shows a carved figure of a sleeping child.
Cedar Grove, Rollersville, and Fitten Street may have fewer grand statues, but their meaning is just as powerful. At Cedar Grove, you can stand among graves that belong to people who lived through slavery, Reconstruction, Jim Crow, and the long struggle for civil rights. At Rollersville, you move from the original family plot to areas that later held both white and Black burials in separate sections, revealing how laws and customs shaped even the land of the dead. At Fitten Street, you see how neighbors in Sand Hills came together to secure land and create a resting place that truly belonged to their community.
Taken together, these cemeteries show us that history is not only in textbooks or museums. It is outside, under the open sky, written in stone but always open to new understanding.
Why this matters to Augusta today
These updated pages are not the end of the story. They are a starting point. For families, clearer information means it is easier to locate a loved one’s grave or trace older generations. For students and teachers, the cemeteries become real world classrooms where lessons in history, art, and culture are right at their feet. For visitors, the pages open a door into a side of Augusta that goes far beyond sports, events, and river views. Most of all, these pages invite people to slow down and listen. To walk through Magnolia, Cedar Grove, West View, Arsenal, Rollersville, or Fitten Street is to walk among thousands of stories. Some are famous. Many are not. All deserve respect. We hope the new cemetery pages help you explore that history with curiosity and care.
Learn more about Augusta’s cemeteries
- Cemeteries overview: https://www.augustaga.gov/346/Cemeteries
- Cemetery history: https://www.augustaga.gov/3369/Cemetery-History
- Find a Graveside: https://www.augustaga.gov/350/Graveside-Project
