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.

Today’s entry is a re-post of a piece I did in May 2013 about a 1964 triple homicide in Gwinnett County, Ga. It was a heinous crime that rocked the county for years. Since I first posted it, I’ve talked to a number of Gwinnett residents who still remember it well and how shocking it was at the time. It remains so today.

Remember the saying “like looking for a needle in a haystack”? Sometimes cemetery hopping can be like that in reverse. Something rare is sitting right under your nose and you weren’t even looking for it.

As part of my Find a Grave efforts, I took on the task of photographing many of the graves at Sugar Hill Baptist Church Cemetery in north Gwinnett County. Most of the graves are already documented because of my dedicated Find a Grave friend Wesley, who referenced the cemetery book that lists everyone who is buried there (along with the dates). However, his wife is in a nursing home now so photographing graves is not something he can do. I asked if I could take it on for him and he gave me the green light.

Sugar Hill Baptist Church Cemetery is a large, well kept cemetery situated across from the town’s impressive city hall complex. A small park with a gazebo is across the street and a community center is next door to the cemetery (where I parked my car). Close to 1,500 graves make up the cemetery. I’ve made several trips to take pictures but I’m not quite done. Eating lunch at the nearby Home Spun Restaurant (a meat and three) after these photo sessions makes visits even more pleasant.

It was during one of these trips to Sugar Hill that I photographed a very simple flat stone marker with the name Ralph K. Davis on it. His death was on April 17, 1964. It was located in a decent sized gravel square with the Davis monument behind it. It is rare for me to find a family plot with only one grave in it so as usual, I got curious and began digging for information.

It didn’t take me long to feel my breath catch in my throat.

Ralph King Davis was an officer for the Gwinnett County Police Department. Today, the county is a sprawling mass of homes, businesses and interstate highways. The population is incredibly diverse. But back in 1964, Gwinnett County was a rural backwater somewhat trapped in time. Catching moonshiners was still a going concern for law enforcement. To make matters worse, some lawmen were known to have gotten their hands dirty by taking part in such crimes themselves.

On the evening of April 17, Davis and his partner, Jerry Everett, were giving a ride home to an ill fellow officer, Marvin Jesse Gravitt. En route, they got a suspicious activity call at a home on Arc Way, which was a dirt road connecting Beaver Ruin and Pleasant Hill Roads at the time. What started out as a routine response quickly became something that would make headlines across the country.

Retired former Atlanta police officer Mackie Carson recently wrote a book about it called Judas Deputy. He kindly gave his consent for me to quote from it.

People think chop shops (garages where stolen cars are “chopped up” for parts that are then resold) are a modern phenomenon but not so. In 1964, a number of car theft rings were operating in Gwinnett County for that very purpose.

Thieves would purchase a car from a salvage yard, then steal a similar car and strip the stolen car of its parts. The parts then would be put into the salvaged car — which had no “hot” vehicle ID number.

According to Carson, the “finder’s fee” for stealing a car was $25, and rose to $100 if you took it out of the county. As a result, it became a very tempting crime to commit.

It was this kind of activity the three officers stumbled upon that April night. They found three men beginning the process of stripping a stolen Oldsmobile for parts. One of the thieves, in an attempt to flee, threw the Oldsmobile in reverse and sped back down the road only to be blocked in by the police car. When Everett was examining the inside of the Oldsmobile, the other two thieves came into sight. They were armed and took fatal control of the situation.

The next morning, the bodies of all three officers were found in the nearby woods, handcuffed together with their own handcuffs. They had been shot dead execution style with their own weapons. The Oldsmobile was nearby, torched to destroy evidence.

The ultimate irony is that one of the killers was one of their own, a former Gwinnett County deputy sheriff named Alec Evans. He had even been an ATF agent at one time. The other two, Venson Williams and Wade Truett, owned a garage together in South Carolina and had helped Evans steal the Oldsmobile the previous day.

Gwinnett deputy sheriff Jerry Griswell was one of the first to arrive on the scene the next morning. He never forgot what he saw. “A waste of three fine men,” Mr. Griswell said in a 1989 Atlanta Journal-Constitution article.

According to many witnesses, Evans swore he would find the officers’ killers, even going so far as to visit the Everett family more than once to assure them the murderers would be caught.

Later that year, with no one yet suspecting his role in the murders, Evans was arrested for running illegal moonshine and sent for a short stint in a federal prison in Michigan. He was eating lunch with the other inmates when he was informed he would be going back to Georgia.

Evans, along with Williams and Truett, was arrested for the murders. Evans was convicted and given a death sentence that was later commuted to life in prison. At age 86, he is still incarcerated. Williams (now deceased) served 25 years and was paroled. Wade Truett, also now deceased, was given immunity for his testimony against Evans and Williams. He served no prison time. Carson says Truett was the only one of the trio who did not shoot the officers.

Jerry Everett, only 28 when he was killed, came from a strong law enforcement tradition. His brother, Kelly, was the former Norcross police chief. Another brother, George, was a Doraville police officer.

Brothers Randall and Roger Everett owned and operated Everett’s Music Barn in nearby Suwanee and the store is still a magnet for bluegrass music lovers. It has roots in the tragedy. Those paying condolences to the family would return to hold impromptu bluegrass jam sessions on the Everett family’s porch. The brothers and their friends felt the music was a form of therapy amid their grief. Randall and Roger have since passed away, but the legacy of their music continues.

While many living in Gwinnett today have no idea what took place on a dark country road in 1964, memories of the triple murder linger. Long-time residents remember three police officers being cut down by a gang of thieves, one a wolf in sheep’s clothing. They walked blindly into a crime in progress and paid with their lives.

According to Carson, Ralph Davis’ neighbor, George Kelly, remembered his last conversation with him. Davis told Kelly that he was seriously thinking of leaving law enforcement because of the danger involved.

Sadly, he never had a chance to do so.

In November, I wrote a post about fulfilling my hundredth Find a Grave photo request. That was a big milestone for me! But since I started cemetery hopping in earnest last December, it’s resulted in so much more than that. It’s changed me in ways I was not expecting.

Telling Their Stories

I’m not into the paranormal. My faith is in Jesus Christ, not Ouija boards. Some people visit cemeteries in hopes of making contact with the “other side”. And that’s fine. But it’s not my goal.

However, I have become more willing to believe in the unexplained. I do think some individuals whose graves I have discovered wanted me to find them. They almost tug on my sleeve to get my attention. It isn’t a coincidence that I found slain police officer Ralph K. Davis’ grave amid hundreds of others at Sugar Hill Baptist Church Cemetery. Something about it urged me to find out more.

When I discovered Ralph was at the center of one of the biggest murder cases in Gwinnet County history, I knew I had to write about it. By sharing the story of Ralph and his brother officers Marvin Jesse Gravitt and Jerry Everett, I educated a new generation about a forgotten slice of history. It’s hard not to feel a jolt when you realize that you frequently, unknowingly, travel a road that was once a murder scene.

The same goes for Adeline Bagley Buice, who while pregnant not only survived arrest by the Union Army and transportation to the North, she spent five years making her way to the only home she had ever known. That kind of spirit is stunning. I’m glad I was able to share her story to a fresh audience.

But my favorite so far has to be children’s author Madge Bigham. I literally had to dig up her gravestone because it was so covered by sod and grass clippings. She was waiting patiently for someone to uncover it.

In discovering Madge, I found a kindred spirit who loved writing as much as I do. Her love for children and her desire to improve their lives in an era when women were supposed to get married and stay quietly at home is impressive.

Since then, I’ve swapped emails with some of Madge’s relatives and learned more about her. When I visit Westview Cemetery, I always stop by her grave (and those of her three siblings) to make sure it’s not getting covered up again. To say hello and assure her she’s not forgotten.

Making New Friends and Reconnecting With Old Ones

I’m an introvert by nature. Talking to people I don’t know is a struggle. By getting into cemetery hopping and writing this blog, I have met or reconnected with some great people.

Sharon Smith Patterson is a perfect example. I didn’t know her well in high school but we met up again this year when she started reading my blog. By accepting her invitation to visit an almost hidden Davis Cemetery, I discovered a wealth of history I’d never known. Thanks to my new hobby, I got to spend some time with Sharon and get to know her better.

The same goes for helping my buddy Steve Reagin find his ancestors in Lithonia. We hadn’t seen each other in years but once we started talking, it felt like it had only been a few months.

I’ve also made new friends in my community who read my blog. One of them is Jennifer Graham, a fellow “hopper” and talented photographer. It’s great fun to sit and talk with someone else who shares my passion for history and cemeteries.

One thing that’s surprised me is how many people want to talk to me about their own affinity for cemeteries. Martin, the friend who helped me find Westivew Cemetery, is one of them. He and I have talked about how he finds comfort by visiting his mother’s grave. How visiting cemeteries is a positive experience for him. I like knowing that I’m not the only one.

The Sweet Sound of Silence

I’m not outdoorsy. At. All. I have gone real tent camping exactly twice in my life. A cabin is more my comfort zone than a sleeping bag on the ground.

However, now that I spend a good bit of my time under the open sky of a cemetery, my comfort level with the great outdoors has shifted.

When I’m in a cemetery, especially one out in the country, I enter a different world. No cars honking, no music blaring, nobody talking on cell phones. It’s just me, nature and the dead. The only background noises are the squirrels and birds going on about their business.

With the lack of distractions, I can let myself relax. My anxiety level drops and I find a peace that’s beyond words. I can appreciate God’s handiwork and the lives of those He created, all of them unique.

Finding My Voice

A few years ago when I first considered blogging, I knew I didn’t want to write a “mommy blog.” Many other talented ladies have that covered and do it well. I wanted to write about something unique and quirky. Something different.

With Adventures in Cemetery Hopping, I’ve found my true voice. A platform for my writing, which is something for which I’ve sought for quite a while. It releases something in my soul that makes me feel heard. Not necessarily understood, but heard.

As 2013 ends, I issue you an invitation. If there’s a cemetery you would like me to visit, please let me know. I already have a long list but I’m always happy to add to it. Just contact me at traci.rylands@gmail.com.

So many cemeteries. So little time!

Remember the saying “like looking for a needle in a haystack”? Sometimes cemetery hopping can be like that in reverse. Something rare is sitting right under your nose and you weren’t even looking for it.

As part of my Find a Grave efforts, I took on the task of photographing many of the graves at Sugar Hill Baptist Church Cemetery in north Gwinnett County. Most of the graves are already documented because of my dedicated FG friend Wesley, who referenced the cemetery book that lists everyone who is buried there (along with the dates). However, his wife is in a nursing home now so photographing graves is not something he can do. I asked if I could take it on for him and he gave me the green light.

Sugar Hill Baptist Church Cemetery is a large, well kept cemetery situated across from the town’s impressive city hall complex. A small park with a gazebo is across the street and a community center is next door to the cemetery (where I parked my car). Close to 1,500 graves make up the cemetery. I’ve made several trips to take pictures but I’m not quite done. Eating lunch at the nearby Home Spun Restaurant (a meat and three) after these photo sessions makes visits even more pleasant.

It was during one of these trips to Sugar Hill that I photographed a very simple flat stone marker with the name Ralph K. Davis on it. His death was on April 17, 1964. It was located in a decent sized gravel square with the Davis monument behind it. It is rare for me to find a family plot with only one grave in it so as usual, I got curious and began digging for information.

It didn’t take me long to feel my breath catch in my throat.

Ralph King Davis was an officer for the Gwinnett County Police Department. Today, the county is a sprawling mass of homes, businesses and interstate highways. The population is incredibly diverse. But back in 1964, Gwinnett County was a rural backwater somewhat trapped in time. Catching moonshiners was still a going concern for law enforcement. To make matters worse, some lawmen were known to have gotten their hands dirty by taking part in such crimes themselves.

On the evening of April 17, Davis and his partner, Jerry Everett, were giving a ride home to an ill fellow officer, Marvin Jesse Gravitt. En route, they got a suspicious activity call at a home on Arc Way, which was a dirt road connecting Beaver Ruin and Pleasant Hill Roads at the time. What started out as a routine response quickly became something that would make headlines across the country.

Retired former Atlanta police officer Mackie Carson recently wrote a book about it called Judas Deputy. He kindly gave his consent for me to quote from it.

People think chop shops (garages where stolen cars are “chopped up” for parts that are then resold) are a modern phenomenon but not so. In 1964, a number of car theft rings were operating in Gwinnett County for that very purpose.

Thieves would purchase a car from a salvage yard, then steal a similar car and strip the stolen car of its parts. The parts then would be put into the salvaged car — which had no “hot” vehicle ID number.

According to Carson, the “finder’s fee” for stealing a car was $25, and rose to $100 if you took it out of the county. As a result, it became a very tempting crime to commit.

It was this kind of activity the three officers stumbled upon that April night. They found three men beginning the process of stripping a stolen Oldsmobile for parts. One of the thieves, in an attempt to flee, threw the Oldsmobile in reverse and sped back down the road only to be blocked in by the police car. When Everett was examining the inside of the Oldsmobile, the other two thieves came into sight. They were armed and took fatal control of the situation.

The next morning, the bodies of all three officers were found in the nearby woods, handcuffed together with their own handcuffs. They had been shot dead execution style with their own weapons. The Oldsmobile was nearby, torched to destroy evidence.

The ultimate irony is that one of the killers was one of their own, a former Gwinnett County deputy sheriff named Alec Evans. He had even been an ATF agent at one time. The other two, Venson Williams and Wade Truett, owned a garage together in South Carolina and had helped Evans steal the Oldsmobile the previous day.

Gwinnett deputy sheriff Jerry Griswell was one of the first to arrive on the scene the next morning. He never forgot what he saw. “A waste of three fine men,” Mr. Griswell said in a 1989 Atlanta Journal-Constitution article.

According to many witnesses, Evans swore he would find the officers’ killers, even going so far as to visit the Everett family more than once to assure them the murderers would be caught.

Later that year, with no one yet suspecting his role in the murders, Evans was arrested for running illegal moonshine and sent for a short stint in a federal prison in Michigan. He was eating lunch with the other inmates when he was informed he would be going back to Georgia.

Evans, along with Williams and Truett, was arrested for the murders. Evans was convicted and given a death sentence that was later commuted to life in prison. At age 86, he is still incarcerated. Williams (now deceased) served 25 years and was paroled. Wade Truett, also now deceased, was given immunity for his testimony against Evans and Williams. He served no prison time. Carson says Truett was the only one of the trio who did not shoot the officers.

Jerry Everett, only 28 when he was killed, came from a strong law enforcement tradition. His brother, Kelly, was the former Norcross police chief. Another brother, George, was a Doraville police officer.

Brothers Randall and Roger Everett owned and operated Everett’s Music Barn in nearby Suwanee and the store is still a magnet for bluegrass music lovers. It has roots in the tragedy. Those paying condolences to the family would return to hold impromptu bluegrass jam sessions on the Everett family’s porch. The brothers and their friends felt the music was a form of therapy amid their grief. Randall and Roger have since passed away, but the legacy of their music continues.

While many living in Gwinnett today have no idea what took place on a dark country road in 1964, memories of the triple murder linger. Long-time residents remember three police officers being cut down by a gang of thieves, one a wolf in sheep’s clothing. They walked blindly into a crime in progress and paid with their lives.

According to Carson, Ralph Davis’ neighbor, George Kelly, remembered his last conversation with him. Davis told Kelly that he was seriously thinking of leaving law enforcement because of the danger involved.

Sadly, he never had a chance to do so.