Wednesday, October 16, 2002
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Wednesday, October 16, 2002 |
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Who's responsible for historic F'ville cemetery? Nobody's sure By MONROE ROARK
Workers in Fayetteville's Public Works Department take care of the Fayetteville City Cemetery just as if it were their own. But it's not. In fact, it doesn't belong to anybody, except for the people who own each individual plot among the 1,400 or so at the site on Ga. Highway 54 next to the Fayette County Board of Education headquarters. Although city employees help with some general upkeep, the city does not own the cemetery. "They keep the grass down," said City Manager Joe Morton of the city work crew. "They don't do anything on the plots themselves. They just mow around them." That's really all the city can do. An elderly man in another city contacted Fayetteville officials about possibly making arrangements for the city to maintain his family's plots after his death, and he proposed paying the city for that service. His letter has been forwarded to the City Council, but Morton said there's a good chance that such an arrangement would not be legal. This situation is not entirely unique. Brooks, Tyrone and Woolsey also have city cemeteries, but those are not owned by the municipalities themselves. Approximately 9,000 gravesites lie in the 129 cemeteries spread throughout Fayette County, according to county historian Carolyn Cary. Some are privately owned, and others are owned by various churches. Some of the history of Fayette's gravesites, four or five of which go back to the 19th century, is not completely clear. The Fayetteville cemetery, for instance, was established in the 1820s, but you can't prove it by gravestones because those came from Augusta and very few people could afford them, Cary said. "The city was founded in 1823, so you know they started burying people pretty soon after that," she added. The earliest gravestone is dated 1832. There are 71 Confederate gravesites in the Fayetteville cemetery, along with many of the city's earliest settlers. Among those is Phillip Fitzgerald, who came to Fayette in the 1820s and was the great-grandfather of "Gone With The Wind" author Margaret Mitchell. Present-day developers must take special care with regard to past residents' final resting places. State law dictates that cemeteries must be protected from new construction, and when building around a cemetery, the builder must fence it off and make certain it is not disturbed. If a cemetery lies in the middle of a piece of private property, family members of the deceased must be given access. Fayetteville officials are taking a close look at what can be done to improve the overall look of the city cemetery, Morton said. The bulk of the task has fallen to the Main Street design committee, since the cemetery falls within the Main Street District. Plans have already been made for the installation of ornamental gates at the main entrance, and bids for that work should be solicited very soon, Morton said. The addition of a few trash cans is another idea being considered. When flowers are planted by family members and they eventually die, there's no convenient way to dispose of them right now, said Morton, who has walked the entire cemetery recently with other city employees to help assess its condition and what the city can do to improve it. The city has no records of its own concerning who is buried where, so help has been requested from Cary and other long-time Fayette Countians who have information of their own to share. All of the cemetery's lots have already been sold, according to Morton.
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