Attapulgus Presyterian Cemetery
Attapulgus, Decatur County, Georgia
Marker Inscription
Attapulgus Presyterian Cemetery. Perpetual Care Foundation. Lot given by J. H. Gibson 1850 Pleasant Grove Presbyterian Church Cemetery 1854 Resolution 1966 Record Decatur Co, GA. In Memory Gibson, Chestnut, Cook, Pound & others by descendants. Initial gift W.P. Cook $1,000 Church lot sale $1,000 Trustees J.J. Lester, Last Elder Mrs. W.P. Cook Mrs. Toulou Dole Mrs. R. M. Darsey, Dec. Mrs. R. D. Humphrey C. E. Duke
The Story
In the flatwoods of far southwest Georgia, the little community of Attapulgus set aside burial ground beginning around 1850, when J. H. Gibson donated a lot that soon adjoined the Pleasant Grove Presbyterian Church cemetery of 1854. Generations of local families — Gibson, Chestnut, Cook, Pound and others — laid their dead here, and in the twentieth century their descendants established a perpetual-care foundation to keep the ground tended. The names and small bequests recorded on the marker are the quiet institutional memory of an antebellum rural congregation.
Why it matters
Church cemeteries like this one are among the most durable records of the families who settled the antebellum Georgia frontier, preserving community roots long after the church itself has faded.
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Related people
- · J. H. Gibson
- · W. P. Cook
Themes & tags
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