Rose Hill Cemetery
Founded in 1853 on land sold by city mayor Meredith Helm, Rose Hill replaced Greenwood as Columbia’s city cemetery.
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Rose Hill is located on Cemetery Avenue just south of downtown Columbia and west of Rosemount cemetery.
Rosemount Cemetery
Established in 1873, Rosemount Cemetery has served Columbia's African American community for more than 165 years. It sits on a hill that gently slopes to the east and is the final resting place for many of Columbia’s prominent citizens, Among those buried at Rosemount are Dr. J.C. Halfacre, a prominent physician who served as an alderman from Columbia’s Third Ward. He is possibly the earliest African American to serve in Columbia’s city government.
Rosemount is the final resting place for members of the United States Colored Troops (USCT), and Isaiah Gholston, a builder and a minister who constructed the Gholston Methodist Church (now Bethel AME Church) on the corner of Glade and Helm (11th) Street,
There is a cenotaph to Edmond Kelley who was one of the seven founders of Mt. Lebanon Church and after emancipation was one of the leading figures in the cause of African American education in Maury County.
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Rosemount is located on Graham Street east of Rose Hill cemetery.
Greenwood Cemetery
Greenwood Cemetery is the original burial grounds in the city of Columbia. It was created on November 14, 1809, with a two-acre plot on the northern edge of the city on a bluff overlooking the Duck River.
Nathan Vaught, a well-known Maury County builder and historian, stated that the first person to be buried in Greenwood after its official recognition was his own foster mother, Mrs. Radford, who died in 1809. Unfortunately, the location of her grave is unknown as it was never marked.
For half a century, Greenwood remained the only public cemetery in Columbia and contains the mortal remains of many of Maury County's pioneers, including the graves of Major Samuel Polk and his wife, Jane Knox Polk. These were the parents of James Knox Polk, 11th President of the United States. Also we find markers in Greenwood for at least three soldiers of the American Revolution, a dozen or so for soldiers of the War of 1812, one or two for the Mexican War, and several for the Civil War.
The City of Columbia, in 1886, passed an ordinance that effectively closed the cemetery for further interments. The only exception was for near relatives of persons already buried there. Only a few burials have been made in Greenwood since 1900.
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Greenwood Cemetery is located on North Garden street.