Elmwood Cemetary and a Hidden Mass Grave Site

It's Wednesday, January 16 and today we are exploring the historic Elmwood Cemetery, founded in 1854. This large cemetery, which borders the Randolph Cemetery, was and still is the most prestigious cemetery in Columbia. Inside its gate you will find massive tombstones, statues and even a confederate soldier burial ground. Many date back to the 1800s and it appears that in the past, large tombstones showed a persons importance. Not much has changed in a hundred years. But once again, while exploring Elmwood Cemetery, we discovered something more than beautiful tombstones with moving epithets. We found a mass burial site hidden behind this cemetery, with a monument to the dead and it's hidden from public view.

We actually began our journey in the small St. Peter's Cemetery just before Elmwood Cemetery. Even though this one has a separate entrance gate, the grounds blend together, making it one giant cemetery inside.

There are statues everywhere. This cemetery is much different than the Randolf Cemetery we visited the week before.

The grave of a small child. One thing we've noticed from visiting the cemeteries is that infants and toddlers died often in the 1800s and early 1900s. Some families have as many as four and five infant and baby deaths.

The gravestones and markers are as big as they seem. This one is from Oct. 9, 1890.

I really like the uniqueness of this marker and later brought my daughter back for a photo shoot with it.

These cut off tree looking markers were crafted by 'The Woodsmen of the World' and signify that a life was cut short; a death before its time. This could either be a child or a person that died of illness in the prime of his or her life or a sudden and fatal accident.

There are so many different styles of grave markers and headstones here.

After finding the forgotten buried by the highway last week, Steph went home and began to research the area to find out what happened. She wanted to know who these people were and why their graves were left in such a condition. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, read the blog about Randall Cemetery and what we found there.) She found a map that showed a state cemetery somewhere in the area. We couldn't see it so we rode around to the very back of Elmwood Cemetery to see if we could find it. There was no sign of it, but there was a tiny dirt road that led out of the back of the cemetery and seemingly into the hills. We followed and ignored the 'No Tresspassing' sign that lay attached to a fallen tree. Never in a million years did we think we'd find something so tragic again.

After some four-wheeling in Steph's little box car, we came upon a small clearing with a fence around an area and we could see headstones inside. We thought we found it. This large (about six feet tall) memorial stone was located outside the fenced area and so we began to read. The stone reads "Cemetery...Herein lie the remains of 692 individuals -- perhaps early settlers of this area -- whose identities are unknown. These remains were moved from their earlier resting places near the east bank of the Broad River, in order to permit the widening of route 1-126 on that location." This was not the state cemetery, but a mass burial site so the highway could be widened. We could not believe what we were seeing.

The following are the few headstones from inside the fenced area. Some look to be patients from the Bull Street Lunatic Asylum (named in the 1800s). We are sure that the mass majority of land with no markers is the mass grave the monument spoke of.

The numbers on these gravestones lead us to believe they were patients of the Lunatic Asylum.

Uh Oh! Do we call that a typo? Perhaps they were using patients as labor to make these gravestones. We know they had many businesses there (read the blog entry about the Lunatic Asylum on Bull Street) and were a self sustaining community within a city.

The orange dirt road you see in the distance is the road we came in on. You can see the railroad tracks on the other side of the road. It was on the other side of those railroad tracks and down about a half mile that we found the other gravestones that seem to be throwaways (Randolf Cemetery blog). If the highway dug up and buried all the bodies here to expand, we wondered what the railroad did. Are there more bodies underneath the tracks? You'd think that would be a dumb question but after what we've discovered, it's a very real possibility.

Another friend joined us on this outing and we were all astounded by our discovery. There were a few markers and headstones towards the end of the fenced area but most were up front where I was when taking this photo. There were no where near 692 so it begs the question, "Where are all the headstones from the mass buried here?"

Many graves had these little markers on them.

We were curious as to what was in that big white fence in the upper left corner of the cemetery. We decided to have a look despite the 'No Trespassing' sign on door. The lock was open and we felt that was an omen to enter and have a look around.

It turned out to be the burial place for cadavers used to teach medical students at USC.

The place was well cared for and even had a bench for sitting and paying respect to the bodies buried here.

We finally left this area and went back to the cemetery to take more photographs there. These are only a tiny sampling of the photos I took there. (Steph will post hers on another page and they will be quite good so be sure to take a look.) If you are ever in the area, definitely check out Elmwood Cemetery. If you stop by the office located at the front of the property, they will give you a map and some brochures about the famous buried here. They also do tours. And if you are feeling particularly adventurous, drive to the back of the cemetery and take the dirt road to the mass grave site. Just be careful not to get caught.