Bonaventure Cemetery: Colonists, Generals and Johnny Mercer
Savannah, GA
- Distance: 2.1 miles (3.4 km)
- Difficulty: Easy
- Loop
- Free
- 20 stops
A 2.2-mile loop through Savannah's most famous cemetery, from the main gate past Georgia's founding colonists, Civil War generals, Little Gracie and the photographer behind the Bird Girl. It finishes along the east end with Johnny Mercer, Conrad Aiken's bench and the Corinne Lawton monument.
Trail start
Bonaventure Cemetery main gate. Parking available.
Stops
Solomon's Lodge No. 1 Masonic Obelisk
Just inside the gates is the old Masonic burial ground. The obelisk in its center was put up in 2009 by Solomon's Lodge No. 1 of Savannah. It marked 275 years of Freemasonry in Georgia, from 1734 to 2009. Read the inscription to find out who founded the lodge. It's a name you'll hear again in the…
Jack Leigh, photographer of the Bird Girl
Savannah photographer Jack Leigh is buried here in Section M. He was born in Savannah on November 8, 1948, and died there on May 19, 2004, at 55. In 1993 author John Berendt recommended Leigh to Random House to shoot the cover of his book, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. Leigh photographed…
John S. Banks (Rotary Club founder)
John S. Banks founded the Rotary Club of Savannah in January 1914. He was born on March 22, 1879, and died on November 21, 1915, less than two years later. The Rotary Club of Savannah placed this marker at his grave in 2015, on the 100th anniversary of his death. Read it to find the Rotary motto…
John Walz, sculptor
John Walz was born in Württemberg, Germany, on August 31, 1844, and became a popular choice for cemetery monuments in Savannah. He made more than seventy monuments here in Bonaventure. You'll see his best-known work, Little Gracie, later on this walk. For all that, his own grave had no memorial at…
Rufus E. Lester, mayor and congressman
Rufus Lester's career is carved right on his monument. He was a Confederate soldier, a Georgia state senator from 1870 to 1879, Mayor of Savannah from 1883 to 1889, and a member of Congress from 1890 to 1906. Read to the end of the inscription for the short phrase his family chose to sum him up…
Julia Backus Smith, Savannah's marathoner
Not every famous grave here is old. Julia Denise Backus Smith (1946-2003) was an educator, a county commissioner and a trustee of the Telfair museum. Walk around to the back of her two-sided monument. It calls her Savannah's fastest female runner and lists her races, including the age at which she…
Herman Myers, first Jewish mayor of Savannah
Herman Nathan Myers was born in Bavaria, Germany, on January 18, 1847. He became the first Jewish mayor of his adopted hometown of Savannah. He died in Savannah on March 24, 1909. Savannah's Jewish community has deep roots in Bonaventure. In 1909 Congregation Mickve Israel bought land next to the…
American Legion memorials
About 1,300 veterans are buried in Bonaventure, and more than 100 of them lie in this American Legion section. Two memorials stand about 15 meters apart on Walz Way. The first is "Sacred to the Memory of Veterans of World Wars." Read the second to see who it honors. Bonaventure also has the…
Governor Edward Telfair
Edward Telfair came to America from Scotland in 1758. He served three terms as governor of Georgia in the late 1700s and signed the Articles of Confederation for Georgia. He was first buried in a vault on his Sharon plantation. His remains were later moved here, and his daughters put up a memorial…
Noble Wimberly Jones, "Morning Star of Liberty"
Noble Wimberly Jones came to Savannah in 1733 with his parents, among the first colonists. He grew up to be a patriot. He served as one of Georgia's delegates to the Continental Congress and earned the nickname "Morning Star of Liberty." Read his stone. What title comes before his name? He died on…
Noble Jones, founding colonist
Noble Jones was born in Herefordshire, England, in 1702 and arrived in Georgia with James Oglethorpe in 1733. He owned Wormsloe, his plantation on the Isle of Hope, and died in Savannah in 1775. A Bonaventure Historical Society marker honors 13 colonists buried in this area. Most of them were moved…
The Tattnall Family Plot
The Tattnalls owned Bonaventure before it was a cemetery, and they are still here. Commodore Josiah Tattnall III was born on Bonaventure Plantation on November 9, 1795. He became a naval officer, and in the Civil War he commanded the Confederate ironclad CSS Virginia, the former Merrimac, after its…
Little Gracie Watson
Gracie Watson was the only child of W. J. and Frances Watson. At Easter time in April 1889, she died of pneumonia at the age of six. Her father asked sculptor John Walz, whose grave you passed in Section A, for a statue of her. Walz carved this life-size marble figure from a photograph. So many…
Old Bonaventure Waterworks and Garden
A cemetery this size needs water. In 1905 the Evergreen Cemetery Company installed two Rumsey triplex pumps here. In 1934 the City put in a deep-well turbine pump. The area was cleared in 1998, and the Bonaventure Historical Society keeps up the garden. Read the marker to learn what happened to the…
Edythe Chapman, silent-film actress
Hollywood is buried here too. Edythe Chapman was a stage actress who moved into silent films and appeared in at least 115 of them. She married actor James Neill, and both rest in the Neill family plot. Next: head north to Section F.
General Hugh Weedon Mercer
Hugh Weedon Mercer was born in Fredericksburg, Virginia, on November 27, 1808, and became a Confederate brigadier general. He died far from home, in Baden-Baden, Germany, on June 9, 1877. Records show his body was brought back to Savannah in 1879. He began the house on Monterey Square now called…
General Robert H. Anderson
Robert Houstoun Anderson was another Confederate general buried in Section F. After the war he came home to Savannah and became the city's chief of police in 1867. He held the job until he died in 1888. Next: head east to the Mercer plot in Section H.
Johnny Mercer and the Mercer Family Plot
Johnny Mercer was born in Savannah on November 18, 1909, and became one of America's great songwriters. He wrote the lyrics to more than 1,000 songs, including "Moon River" (1961). In 1942 he co-founded Capitol Records in Hollywood. He died on June 25, 1976, and was buried here in the family plot…
Conrad Aiken's Bench
Poet Conrad Aiken was born in Savannah on August 5, 1889. He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1930 for his Selected Poems, and Governor Jimmy Carter named him Georgia's poet laureate. He died on August 17, 1973. His grave marker is a marble bench beside his parents' graves. Read both of its inscriptions…
Corinne Lawton Monument
Corinne Elliott Lawton died on January 24, 1877. Her monument was carved in Italy. It was first placed in Laurel Grove Cemetery and moved here in 1898. Her father, Alexander Robert Lawton, was the Confederacy's quartermaster general and later U.S. minister to Austria. The Bonaventure Historical…
Created by Gregg.