Last week, we started our journey through Augusta’s historic Magnolia Cemetery. I shared some general history of Augusta and the cemetery. This week, we’ll jump right into learning more about Magnolia’s residents.

One of the most unique monuments I saw was for Dr. James D. Mackie.

Dr. Mackie was the son of William Mackie and Sarah Herbert Mackie. A native of Scotland, William Mackie arrived in America at the age of 19. He married Georgia native Sarah Herbert in 1815 and James was born in 1818.

A bachelor, Dr. Mackie graduated from the Medical College of Georgia in 1842 and lived with his parents in nearby Summerville. Augusta experienced yellow fever epidemics in 1839 and 1854. During the latter, the Catholic Church of the Most High Trinity served as a temporary hospital. Over 120 people died in a four-month period. Dr. Mackie was one of them.

I found out only this week that while the monument at Magnolia was placed to honor him, Dr. Mackie is actually buried with his parents 13 miles away at Summerville Cemetery in a box grave. It features a heartfelt epitaph:

He was a good Samaritan: and freely devoted his best energies of his mind and body to the relief of the sick, until death removed him from the scene of his pious labors to commemorate, which a monument has been erected by his friends and a grateful community, in the city cemetery.

So why two monuments? My guess is that at the time, Dr. Mackie’s sacrifice so moved his friends that they wanted to erect a marker closer to the city where many more could see it. Since Dr. Mackie lived with his parents in Summerville, it makes sense that he (and later they) would be buried there.

Mackie’s Magnolia monument features the story of the Good Samaritan, recounted in the Bible in Luke 10:25-37. An injured man lies at the side of the road needing help while others pass him by. A Samaritan stops to not only give the man aid but takes him to an inn to recover, paying for his stay. In ancient times, Samaritans were considered the lowest class of people on the totem poll. This image makes me think that Dr. Mackie probably treated people from all walks of life, including the poorest of the poor. It’s a motif I have never seen on a monument before.

Not very far from Dr. Mackie’s monument is one that’s a bit of a mystery to me. But the monument for Anne Milledge Smith Bothwell made me stop and look.

A native of South Carolina, Anne Milledge Smith married James T. Bothwell. He is listed as an attorney on the 1850 Census but later records show he was a successful grocer. They had several children. Their eldest, Ebenezer, was nine when he died and daughter Julia died in infancy. It’s possible that the two children at her knee represent them.

Anne’s husband, James, remarried. He and his second wife, Sallie, both died in 1879 within three days of each other. Sallie is buried to the left of James while Anne’s monument is to his right.

Another monument I saw was for a young man cut down in the prime of his life. Many such markers dot the landscape of Magnolia but most are not this big.

The eldest son of Massilon Pleasant Stovall and Margaret Amelia Speer Stovall, Frank Middleton Stovall was a Georgia native. His grandfather, Marcellus Augustus Stovall, served with distinction in the Confederacy during the Civil War. Oddly enough, his grave (also at Magnolia) is quite humble compared to that of his grandson.

At the outbreak of the Civil War, Marcellus Stovall was a captain of a militia artillery unit when appointed Lieutenant Colonel in the Third Georgia Infantry, serving under General Kirby Smith. In January 1863, he was promoted to Brigadier General in command of a brigade in General Breckenridge’s Division, which fought at Chickamauga and in the Atlanta Campaign. After the fall of Atlanta, Brig. General Stovall commanded a brigade in General Clayton’s Division that fought at Franklin, Nashville, and in the Carolinas.

His grandson, Frank, served as a humble private in the Confederacy in the Fifth Battalion, Florida Cavalry, Company A. The Fifth Battalion served in the Department of South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida, and took an active part in the battles of Olustee, Gainesville, Milton, and Braddock’s Farm.

According to his obituary, Frank Stovall was acting as “drill master to the Infantry and Ordinance Sergeant at Marianna” when he died. I’m not sure how a private attained those responsibilities but it’s possible.

Frank Stovall died in March, just a few months before the unit surrendered at Tallahassee on May 10, 1865, about 40 miles west of Marianna, Fla. I looked at the roll for Company A. He is the only one listed as “killed in battle” among the three men who died in Company A during the war. His parents’ names are also on the base of his monument and they are buried beside him.

The two final stories I’m going to share involve the Barrett and Holt families. I knew nothing about them when I encountered their plots, but it was soon apparent both families had known much sorrow.

William Hale Barrett and his wife, Sarah Rhind Barrett, lived a comfortable life in Augusta. Together, they had seven children. Son William Hale Barrett, Jr. became a prominent attorney and later a U.S. District Court Judge. Daughter Harriett (Hattie) married noted Atlanta Journal editor and three-term state legislator Clarke Howell. By comparison, eldest son Glascock lived a quieter life as a much-respected druggist.

But William and Sarah experienced more than their fair share of tragedy. Their first three children (save for Hattie, who died at the age of 30) lived long lives. But over the span of six years, William and Sarah’s last four children would all die before reaching the age of two.

As I’ve pointed out in this blog before, the death of a child in infancy was almost expected in the centuries before antibiotics. It was a sad but accepted fact of life. But for a family to lose four children in six years must have been an especially hard blow to take.

Close to the entrance of the cemetery, you can find the graves of William White Holt and his wife, Mary Arminton Ware Holt. William was not only a commissioned officer in the War of 1812, he served as Judge of the Superior Court and was later Augusta’s mayor from 1825 to 1826.

The Holts had several children who lived to adulthood, including Dr. William James Holt, who received medals for his service as a physician during the Crimean War. Youngest son Lieutenant Benjamin Rice Holt served in the Fifth Georgia Infantry, Company A, during the Civil War. But like the Barretts, William and Mary felt the harsh hand of tragedy visit their home often.

A single monument beside their two box graves (along with Benjamin’s) commemorates the lives of the four children they lost in infancy and childhood. Edward Rowell lived to the age of 10, (1821-1831), Charles Briggs lived to the age of 12 (1831-1843), Robert Augustus lived a little over a year (1835-1836) and Lucy lived less than a year (1837-1838).

Next week, I’ll share some of the diverse history of some of Magnolia’s residents, including the Jewish sections and the Augusta Orphan Asylum plot.

Two things come to mind when I think of Augusta, Ga.

The Masters and James Brown.

I don’t play golf, but my Dad did. We watched a lot of it on TV. Augusta National was almost sacred to him, and it’s special for me as well. When you walk those velvety green fairways and see the colorful azaleas in bloom, you know this place is different than any other golf course.

I’ve attended two practice rounds at the Masters. The first was in the late 1980s when Dad decided to go at the last minute. I skipped my college classes that day to tag along. It was the last year the practice round was free and open to the public. The late Payne Stewart and Davis Love III were two golfers I remember seeing.

I returned to the Masters in 2011, thanks to the generosity of my husband’s family, who managed to secure tickets. This time, I had a much greater appreciation for the experience. I crossed paths with the legendary Vijay Singh and British golfer Lee Westwood. I’ll never forget being there and hope I can go back someday.

Augusta is also known for Godfather of Soul James Brown. Although he was born in South Carolina, he spent much of his life in Augusta. His death in 2006 set in motion a number of legal actions between family members, including paternity tests and other head-scratching incidents too numerous to mention.

The current whereabouts of Brown’s remains are sketchy. According to his last widow (he was married six times), his body was moved 14 times before it came to rest at his daughter’s home where she had supposedly had it buried in her garden. The casket seen at the funeral was made of 24k gold. Michael Jackson was buried in the same kind in 2009, having admired it at Brown’s funeral.

Brown’s chauffeur William Murrell claimed in 2014, “They muminized [sic] his body so he would never rot, at $140,000 cost. Why? When you got almost 20 kids and six wives it’s hard to get you in the ground.”

It had been five years since my last visit to Augusta when my friend Amy invited me to join her for a weekend road trip. She was keen to do some hiking and I was eager to do some cemetery hopping. Neither of us was disappointed.

Augusta is much older than Atlanta and was part of the original Georgia colony founded in 1736 by James Oglethorpe. The city was named after Princess Augusta of Wales, mother of England’s infamous King George III. After Savannah, it was the second city established in the colony. Today, it is the third-largest city in Georgia.

Magnolia is Augusta’s oldest large cemetery. The land was once part of the Nicolas de L’Aigle plantation and brick yard, with the first official burial in August 1818. A French refugee, de L’Aigle established the brick yard in 1808 and made his fortune by furnishing the city with bricks made of Savannah River clay. Money donated by Mrs. Louise de L’Aigle Reese built the present office building in the memory of her mother. You can see the de L’Aigle name throughout Magnolia Cemetery.

The cemetery covers more than 60 acres. In addition to five Jewish cemeteries and one Greek cemetery, Magnolia also has a Masonic Lodge section, several church sections, an area for Confederate veterans and a special space for orphans. This diversity makes it a unique cemetery amid many I’ve visited. The variety of funerary symbols and motif also sets it apart.

Along with several Augusta mayors and Georgia legislators, seven Confederate generals are buried at Magnolia. A handful of authors, poets and noted educators also rest there. But so are plenty of humble everyday folk, including a number of immigrants who left Europe to make Augusta their home.

Amy took me on a drive through Magnolia on Friday afternoon so I could get the lay of the land. It’s a large cemetery but laid out well with actual street names to guide you. I spent most of my Saturday there while she hiked.

Like all of Georgia, Augusta in August is incredibly HOT and HUMID. Although I was drinking water throughout my trek, I was sweating it out just as fast. I’d never seen a sheen of salt on my skin before that day. Even the paint on my toenails cracked. But a cemetery hopper will do just about anything to visit a new burial ground, regardless of conditions.

The first grave that had me asking Amy to pull over was this one for little Louis Segal, whose family moved from New York to Augusta. I couldn’t find out anything about his family. He died in Memphis, Tenn. but was brought home to Augusta for burial.

Across the road from Louis is the joint marker for Lucy Jane Bridwell and her husband, Samuel. She died at 44. Her husband’s name is not on the marker but it is inscribed under the epitaph he wrote for her. According to census records, he was a planter and later a blacksmith.

I’ve always been intrigued by the “hand of Heaven from the clouds” motif but this one is especially elaborate with the flowers so intricately carved. The finger pointing down doesn’t mean eternal damnation but signifies that the death was unexpected.

Samuel and Lucy Jane had three sons and a daughter. Eldest son William Henry Walker Bridwell and his wife, Frances Brown Bridwell, are also buried at Magnolia.

As I mentioned earlier, Samuel’s epitaph to Lucy Jane is poignant. I don’t often see one as lengthy and heartfelt as this written by a spouse.

Interestingly, Samuel remarried seven months later to a woman 30 years his junior. He and Mamie had at least one child together, according to the 1900 Census. Records indicate Samuel and Mamie are both buried at Magnolia but his name is not next to Lucy Jane’s on the marker.

I’d never heard of poet Paul Hamilton Hayne until I found his monument at Magnolia. A native of Charleston, S.C., Hayne was born in 1830 and lost his father early in life. He was raised by his mother at the home of his uncle, Robert Hayne, prominent orator and politician who served in the U.S. Senate. Paul Hayne served in the Confederate Army but poor health made his military involvement a brief one of four months.

When Charleston was bombarded in 1862, Hayne lost everything. He moved his family to Grovetown, Ga., 16 miles from Augusta, and spent the rest of his life there. A prolific writer, Hayne wrote hundreds of sonnets, lyric poems, and essays. Despite poor health and financial woes, Hayne submitted poetry and essays to such magazines as Scribner’s Monthly, Southern Opinion, and The Atlantic Monthly. He served as editor and literary critic for newspapers across the South, from the Wilmington Star to the Atlanta Sun.

Hayne was also close with fellow Charleston native and writer William Gilmore Simms. Both men began their careers as lawyers but gave it up to concentrate on writing. Together, they founded Russell’s Magazine, which Hayne edited.

Poems of Paul Hamilton Hayne secured his position as poet laureate of the South, a title bestowed on him by numerous critics because of his devotion to his native state, the South, and the men who fought and died in both the Mexican War and the Civil War.

One of Hayne’s poems particularly caught my eye. I wonder if, as a man who knew sickness most of his life, death was on his mind more than most.

Life and Death

I fear thee not, O Death! nay, oft I pine
To clasp thy passionless bosom to mine own,
And on thy heart sob out my latest moan,
Ere lapped and lost in thy strange sleep divine;
But much I fear lest that chill breath of thine
Should freeze all tender memories into stone, —
Lest ruthless and malign Oblivion
Quench the last spark that lingers on love’s shrine:
O God! to moulder through dark, dateless years,
The while all loving ministries shall cease,
And time assuage the fondest mourner’s tears!
Here lies the sting!– this, this it is to die!
And yet great Nature rounds all strife with peace,
And Life or Death, each rests in mystery!

Next time, I’ll share more stories from Magnolia Cemetery. There’s plenty of ground I haven’t covered.

I know you thought I’d never get around to Fairmount’s Mausoleum but today’s the day!

I was truly looking forward to seeing it because at other cemeteries, they often keep their mausoleums locked up and only grant access to family members. Rose Hill Cemetery in Chicago is one of them and I was disappointed I couldn’t see it during my visit in 2015.

Fortunately, Fairmount’s Mausoleum is open every day during certain hours and anyone can wander its quiet halls.

Despite being in the early throes of the Great Depression, Fairmount’s Mausoleum was completed in 1930. The remains of more than 17,000 people are interred there, some in individual or family crypts, others in glass-fronted niches that house urns (which hold cremains).

One of the first things you see when you walk into the airy chapel area where funeral services are held. The stained glass window at the center of it is lovely.

Most of the glass was designed and crafted by the family-owned Watkins Stained Glass Studio, a third-generation Denver business. The firm dates back to 1761 London. Charles Watkins was the first to bring their family craft to the U.S. and eventually to Denver in 1868.

Among the pieces are a twin set of windows depicting Pikes Peak in both winter and summer with Colorado Springs’ Garden of the Gods (which I visited later that week). There is also a stained glass version of The Gleaners by Renoir, based on the book of Ruth in the Bible.

To the left and right of the chapel podium, you can see two large family crypts. One is for the Bonfils family, which played an important part in Denver history. Frederick Gilmer Bonfils purchased what was then the Evening Post, now known as the Denver Post, with Harry Heye Tammen in 1895.

Not unlike today, sensationalism was common in the newspaper business and the Denver Post was no exception. Bonfils and Tammen made a number of enemies as a result. In December 1899, both men were shot by W.W. Anderson, an attorney representing Alfred Packer after a Post article accused Anderson of taking Packer’s life savings as a retainer. Anderson was tried three times but never convicted while Tammen and Bonfils were convicted for jury tampering in the third trial.

In 1900, both Bonfils and Tammen were horsewhipped and hospitalized by a lawyer who disliked their thirst for yellow journalism. The men justified their style with the quote “a dogfight on a Denver street is more important than a war in Europe.” At the time of his death in 1933, Bonfiils was engaged in a libel suit against Roy W. Howard’s rival newspaper, the Rocky Mountain News.

One family member conspicuously absent from the Bonfils crypt is daughter Mary “May” Bonfils Stanton. But I’ll get to her (and her sister Helen) later.

I was excited to see the abundance of glass cabinetry housing a wide variety of urns and boxes containing cremains. This is something I’d only seen in pictures of the San Francisco Columbarium, owned and operated by the Neptune Society, which I featured in a previous blog post.

After we left the Mausoleum, Michael and I rode to the back part of the cemetery. One of the special areas we passed was Fairmount’s Nisei Japanese American Memorial, which honors Air Force veterans of Japanese American descent who fought in Europe during World War II. They served while their families were incarcerated in prison camps (under Order 9066) in Colorado and California. Most were sent to the European theater to fight for the U.S., often in France and Italy.

Another area I noticed was Fairmount’s Spanish American War Memorial. It’s a war that doesn’t get the attention others do because it only lasted a handful of months in 1898. But it did affect many families who sent soldiers to Cuba, Guam and the Philippines.

Colorado’s First Infantry fought in the Philippines and are remembered at Fairmount. The monument itself is gray granite with a bronze statue, but the grave markers around the monument are white marble. Most of these grave markers represent veterans of the Spanish American War, but some are for Civil War veterans.

Earlier I promised to explain the absence of May Bonfils Stanton from the Bonfils family crypt in the Mausoleum. I think it’s a good way to wrap up this series.

Frederick Bonfils and his wife, Belle, had two daughters, May and Helen. Born in 1883, May was the eldest. A strict Catholic, Belle raised her daughters with a close hand while Frederick warned them of the dangers of a man marrying them only for their money. May attended school in New York City and Frederick took her to Europe to study French, art and music. She became an accomplished composer and pianist.

May incurred her father’s wrath by eloping in 1907 with a sheet music salesman (and a non-Catholic) named Clyde Berryman. Frederick was outraged and May’s relationship soured quickly. Helen, her younger sister (and considered her father’s favorite), is said to have further exacerbated the situation. Despite separating a few years after their marriage, May and Clyde did not actually divorce until 1947.

After Frederick died in 1933 (and Belle a few years later), May was given a $25,000 a year income while Helen inherited millions, along with her father’s Denver Post stock. May sued the Bonfils estate for her share of the inheritance. After a long trial, May was awarded half of Belle’s $10 million estate, 15 percent of the newspaper stock, some cash and property. Her relationship with Helen was damaged beyond repair after the trial.

Helen was not exactly a wallflower herself. A woman with the flair for the dramatic, she married actor George Sommes in 1936, although many say claim Sommes was gay. He died in 1956. Helen (then 69) later married her chauffeur, “Tiger” Mike Davis, who was only 28 years old at the time. They divorced in 1971 and Helen died a year later. Davis went on to become a wealthy oilman and died in September 2016.

Part of May’s inherited property was in the Lakewood area and she developed it into a 750-acre estate she named Belmar that included a mansion built to resemble a French palace. She married long-time friend and architect Charles Stanton in 1956. She was 73 and he was 46. A bit of a recluse, May continued her passion of collecting precious jewels. These included the famous Idol’s Eye Diamond, which she purchased in 1947 from Harry Winston.

Both May and Helen gave generously to many philanthropic causes. Helen established the Belle Bonfils Blood Bank in 1943 to honor her mother. In addition to producing a number of Broadway plays and several productions in Denver, Helen was instrumental in establishing the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. The Helen Bonfils Theater Complex is named after her.

May’s money helped established the Clinic of Opthalmology at the University of Denver Medical Center, the Bonfils wing at the Denver Museum of Natural History and the library and auditorium of Loretto Heights College (to name a few). After her death in 1962, half of May’s fortune went to her husband, Charles. He established the Bonfils-Stanton Foundation, still in operation today.

May was strategically buried in the Bonfils-Stanton mausoleum by herself, which stands just opposite the large Fairmount Mausoleum. Helen is buried in the Bonfils family crypt with her parents and first husband, George Sommes. Even in death, the sisters had no desire to be entombed near each other.

It’s unusual for me to do a lengthy four-part series on one cemetery alone. But Fairmount proved to have too much history and beauty to limit to just a few posts. I hope you’ve enjoyed reading about Fairmount as much as I did visiting there.