Rose Hill Cemetery is a 50-acre cemetery located on the banks of the Ocmulgee River in Macon, Georgia, United States, that opened in 1840.[3][4] Simri Rose, a horticulturist and designer of the cemetery, was instrumental in the planning of the city of Macon and planned Rose Hill Cemetery in return for being able to choose his own burial plot.[5] The cemetery is named in his honor.[3]
Simri Rose, Ambrose Baber, Levi Eckley, and R. W. Willis were commissioned in 1836 to find a place for what would become Macon's third cemetery (Fort Hill Cemetery and Old City Cemetery were the first and second, respectively.)[7] The committee decided to establish the cemetery outside of the city because the land there was less expensive.[8] As a horticulturist, Simri Rose was personally involved in deciding the location and type of trees and flowers. Rose Hill Cemetery was originally designed to be a garden cemetery with landscaping, similar to Mount Auburn Cemetery, as it was intended to function as both a cemetery and a local park.[7] Dirt paths through the cemetery were intentionally wide enough to allow easy access for carriages. Two bridges were built across ravines to allow easy access to other parts of the cemetery.[9]
Cemetery sections
The Ross Lot within Rose Hill Cemetery, circa 1880s
The cemetery has one Catholic section for Saint Joseph's Catholic Church and seven Jewish sections: Hebrew Lot, Jew Lot, New Hebrew Lot, Polish Lot, Russian Lot, Sherah Israel, and William Wolff.[10][11] Oak Ridge, a section within Rose Hill Cemetery that was created in 1851, is the final resting place for an unknown number of slaves.[12][13] Soldier's Square holds around 600 Confederate troops.[8]
Current condition
Many factors contribute to the cemetery's change in appearance. Age and exposure to the elements weathered marble statues and tombstones. Most of the dirt paths were paved between 1927 and 1960.[9] Overcrowding contributed to the change in appearance not only because more people were taking up more room, but because digging new graves would damage the roots of nearby trees.[14] A tornado on March 13, 1954, also uprooted many trees.[15] The addition of a railroad in 1881 cut off access to the Ocmulgee River and Interstate 16 added traffic noise.[9]
The cemetery is part of a self-guided walking tour of Macon and is the site of the semi-annual Rose Hill Ramble sponsored by the Middle Georgia Historical Society.[16]
Elizabeth Reed Napier (1845–1935) – inspiration for the Allman Brothers song "In Memory of Elizabeth Reed"[19][20]Graves of Duane Allman and Berry Oakley
^ abCothran, James R.; Danylchak, Erica (2018). Grave landscapes : the nineteenth-century rural cemetery movement. Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press. p. 74. ISBN978-1611177992. OCLC969439589.
^ abPayne, Calder Willingham (1985). Rose Hill Rambles. Macon: Middle Georgia Historical Society. p. x.
^ abHoyt Wansley Jr., James (2000). Rose Hill Cemetery and the Ocmulgee Heritage Greenway: The Impact of Integration. Athens, GA: University of Georgia. p. 84.
^ abcHoyt Wansley Jr., James (2000). Rose Hill Cemetery and the Ocmulgee Heritage Greenway: The Impact of Integration. Athens, GA: University of Georgia. p. 47.
^Payne, Calder Willingham (1985). Rose Hill Rambles. Macon: Middle Georgia Historical Society. p. 13.
^Kaufman, Marian Waxelbaum; Kaufman, Gus Bernd (1997). The Jewish Burials of Macon, Georgia. Macon, GA. p. i.
^Wansley Jr., James Hoyt (2000). Rose Hill Cemetery and the Ocmulgee Heritage Greenway: The Impact of Integration. Athens, GA: University of Georgia. p. 51.
^ abWilson, Scott; Mank, Gregory W. (forward) (2016). "Allman, Duane #216 & Oakley, Barry [sic] #9272". Resting Places: The Burial Sites of More Than 14,000 Famous Persons (3rd ed.). McFarland & Company, Inc. ISBN978-0786479924. OCLC948561021.
