Jackson Street Cemetery | |
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| Coordinates | 33°57′21″N83°22′25″W / 33.95583°N 83.37361°W Coordinates: 33°57′21″N83°22′25″W / 33.95583°N 83.37361°W |
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| NRHP reference No. | 09000779 |
Jackson Street Cemetery, also known as Old Athens Cemetery, was the original cemetery for Athens, Georgia and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. [1] It was in official use as the town cemetery from about 1810 to 1856, [1] until Oconee Hill Cemetery opened. The last known burial was in 1898. [2]
The cemetery is situated on the University of Georgia (UGA) campus adjacent to the College of Environment + Design and Baldwin Hall (to the south) Jackson Street (to the west), and Thomas Street (to the east), "on land that was originally part of the University's land grant from the state legislature, and the school apparently donated it to the city of Athens, though Duncan says there's no official record of the transaction". [2] The cemetery land was deeded back to UGA in 2004. [2] The University encroached on the cemetery's original six acres, [3] [4] reducing it to the two and one-half acres it now occupies. The University had wanted to build on the land and tried to assert title to it in 1890, but opposition scuttled their plans. [5]
Cramped for campus space, the University vigorously pursued [the land title] idea under Chancellor Hill. Graves were to be moved to Oconee Hill and the site used for building, but his death in December, 1905 ended this campaign.
In the 1920s plans to take over the Old cemetery were again proposed, and when Baldwin Hall was built (opened 1938) a couple of acres were indeed taken from the south end of the cemetery (and more for its parking lot). The cemetery was also targeted for use as a site for the Visual Arts Building (opened 1961), but this was "fended off" by the Athens Historical Society (while another slice of land was taken from the north end of the cemetery, as shown by old aerial photographs). [6]
Bodies were disturbed in this process: "workers back in the 1930s removed 120 wooden boxes filled with bones from where Baldwin Hall now sits, then buried them in two 95-foot trenches in or near a pauper cemetery", and a bit of "lore" says that UGA Dean, William Tate, "rode along with the procession to give it some dignity". [7]
In the fall of 1980 the University again proposed moving the graves to Oconee Hill, this time so that the cemetery land could be used for a parking deck. The coalition that fought this proposal "was the nucleus of the Old Athens Cemetery Foundation, Inc." It argued that the legal problems that would result from the proposal would be stupendous." [6]
The Old Athens Cemetery consisted of 'about six acres' in 1906 and now comprises two and a half acres. It has been a victim of the ravages of time and weather, as well as deliberate vandalism, [8] and is the subject of an ongoing restoration project by Janine Duncan, of the University of Georgia Grounds Department. [2] [9]
On November 17, 2015, construction crews working on a renovation of Baldwin Hall discovered a human skull. Construction was paused, and additional graves have been located. "UGA is working closely with the appropriate state agencies to ensure that the remains from up to 27 gravesites are properly removed and re-interred." [10] [11] A total 105 people's remains were removed, of which 30 had enough DNA for analysis. Of those, 27 were African American and would have been slaves. Leaders of the African American community in Athens want the remains to be reinterred in one of the predominately African American cemeteries in town, either Brooklyn Cemetery or Gospel Pilgrim Cemetery. However, UGA says that it is following the direction of the State Archaeologist's Office in placing the bodies in Oconee Hill Cemetery. [12] [13] [14]
Milledgeville is a city in and the county seat of Baldwin County in the U.S. state of Georgia. It is northeast of Macon and bordered on the east by the Oconee River. The rapid current of the river here made this an attractive location to build a city. It was the capital of Georgia from 1804 to 1868, including during the American Civil War. Milledgeville was preceded as the capital city by Louisville and was succeeded by Atlanta, the current capital. Today U.S. Highway 441 connects Milledgeville to Madison, Athens, and Dublin.
Athens, officially Athens–Clarke County, is a consolidated city-county and college town in the U.S. state of Georgia. Athens lies about 70 miles northeast of downtown Atlanta, and is a satellite city of the capital. The University of Georgia, the state's flagship public university and an R1 research institution, is in Athens and contributed to its initial growth. In 1991, after a vote the preceding year, the original City of Athens abandoned its charter to form a unified government with Clarke County, referred to jointly as Athens–Clarke County.
The University of Georgia is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Athens, Georgia. Founded in 1785, it is one of the oldest public universities in the United States. The flagship school of the University System of Georgia, it has been ranked by major institutional rankings among the best public universities in the United States.
Athens Academy is a private, co-educational, college preparatory school in Athens, Georgia. As of 2017, the school enrollment is approximately 945 students. It has been described as a segregation academy.
WGTA is a television station licensed to Toccoa, Georgia, United States, serving much of the northeastern portion of the state. The station is owned by Marquee Broadcasting, and has studios on Big A Road in Toccoa; its transmitter is located northwest of Camp Toccoa in unincorporated Stephens County.
The Tree That Owns Itself is a white oak tree that, according to legend, has legal ownership of itself and of all land within eight feet (2.4 m) of its base. Also known as the Jackson Oak, the tree is at the corner of South Finley and Dearing Streets in Athens, Georgia, US. The original tree, thought to have started life between the mid-16th and late 18th century, fell in 1942, but a new tree was grown from one of its acorns and planted in the same location. The current tree is sometimes referred to as the Son of the Tree That Owns Itself. Both trees have appeared in numerous national publications, and the site is a local landmark.
Josiah Meigs was an American academic, journalist and government official. He was the first acting president of the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens, where he implemented the university's first physics curriculum in 1801, and also president of the Columbian Institute for the Promotion of Arts and Sciences.
Walter Barnard Hill was chancellor of the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens from 1899 until his death in 1905.
David Crenshaw "Uncle Dave" Barrow Jr. served as chancellor of the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens from 1906 until his resignation in 1925.
Omer Clyde "O.C." Aderhold was President of the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens from 1950 until 1967.
WUGA is a public FM radio station serving Athens and much of the northeast part of Georgia. It is a member of Georgia Public Broadcasting's radio network, but is operated by the University of Georgia, with studios and offices located at the Georgia Center for Continuing Education on the UGA campus. The transmitter is located off Walter Sams Road in Winterville, Georgia, southeast of Athens.
The University of Georgia College of Environment and Design (CED) is a college within the University of Georgia (UGA) in Athens, Georgia, United States.
Augustin Smith Clayton was a jurist and politician from the American state of Georgia.
Henry Hull Carlton was an American politician, medical doctor, journalist and soldier.
Oconee Hill Cemetery is a cemetery in Athens, Georgia, United States. The extant cemetery opened in 1856 and is located near the University of Georgia.
The Oconee War was a military conflict in the 1780s and 1790s between European Colonists and the Creek Indians known as the Oconee, who lived in an area between the Apalachee and North Oconee rivers in the state of Georgia.
The North Oconee River Greenway Network is a system of linear parks and trail constituting a total of 8 paved miles in Athens, Georgia. It consists of a mixture of unpaved and paved multi-use trails abutting the Oconee River, some of its minor tributaries and other parks within the county. The network continues to be expanded primarily through the use of TSPLOST funding in addition to funding from Georgia Department of Transportation. The network utilizes a mixture of rail-to-trail and riparian right of ways.
The Athens Regional Library System (ARLS) is a consortium of 11 public libraries across five counties, comprising the Athens – Clarke County metropolitan area as well as Franklin County in northeast Georgia, United States.
Ann Orr Morris was an American silversmith, goldsmith, and enamelist. She died in her hometown of Athens, Georgia, the victim of a triple homicide.
Linnentown was a Black neighborhood in Athens, Georgia that was destroyed in the 1960s by an urban renewal project of the University of Georgia (UGA) and the city government of Athens. Comprising an area of 22 acres, the neighborhood had about fifty families who were forced out, via eminent domain, to make room for student housing for UGA; the dormitories, Russell Hall, Creswell Hall, and Brumby Hall now stand on the site. UGA associate professor of Geography, Jerry Shannon, estimates that the combination of undervaluing the property at the time of sale and forcing residents into areas "of the city where property values have not climbed as quickly" has cost residents over $5 million of generational wealth.
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