Glynn County GaArchives News.....REOPENED GRAVES—The Sewerage Shovels Strike Against Human Bones—Ghastly Finds at the Egmon [sic] Street Excavations—The Spot an Ante-Bellum Cemetery, Antedating Oak Grove. April 4, 1894
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File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Amy Hedrick http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00013.html#0003209 August 1, 2009, 4:15 pm

The Brunswick Times Advertiser; Wednesday 4 April 1894; Pg. 1 Col. 7 April 4, 1894

REOPENED GRAVES—The Sewerage Shovels Strike Against Human Bones—Ghastly Finds 
at the Egmon [sic] Street Excavations—The Spot an Ante-Bellum Cemetery, 
Antedating Oak Grove.

When the muscular negroes who take orders from Contractor Tate drove their 
spades deep into the soft earth on Egmon [sic] street, at the point where it 
borders Wright square this morning, they did not think they were digging into 
the secrets of a city of the dead, but that was nevertheless the case.

Consequently, when at a depth of about four feet, one of the men turned up 
several human bones, he did not sing carelessly like the grave-digger 
in “Hamlet,” but his expression was one of mingled fear and astonishment.

The excavations went on, however, not hindered at all by the gloomy evidences 
of man’s decay which were unearthed with almost every spade full of dirt, 
until a good-sized heap of bones were dug out.

Contractor Tate, not knowing the past history of that plot of ground, thought 
his sewerage work had been the means of discovering the remains of some 
aboriginal people, who had thronged this peninsular long before such things as 
mains, pumping wells and surface drainage were dreamed of.

The history of Wright square and the streets and lots surrounding it is 
however, an ample explanation of how those human bones got there, and why it 
was possible for a gang of workmen, in broad daylight, on a public 
thoroughfare, and in the midst of a populace such an eloquent reminder of that 
dead Past which lies always just under the surface of the sunny Present.

Wright square was a public burying ground before Oak Grove cemetery was laid 
out.  It was at the time when the suburbs were unsurveyed woods and when only 
that portion of town lying along the Bay was at all populated.  Some of the 
pioneers of Brunswick’s municipal history were buried there.  When Oak Grove 
cemetery was opened, a large number of remains were disinterred and removed to 
the new burying ground.

Finally, it was abandoned entirely, the mounds became level with the earth and 
for a long period, up to about ten years ago, only one solitary tombstone 
remained standing to mark the former uses of the ground.  This tombstone soon 
shared the fate of the others and was removed.

Then, the city chaingang, under command of Captain Lewis Harris, went to work 
to modernize the cemetery and convert it into a park.  The surface was graded 
to a depth of from one to two feet, leaving pedestal-like mounds about the 
roots of the oaks.  This grading of the graves of course brought the bones of 
the dead nearer to the surface—but, it also robbed the square of its horror to 
the superstitious and its gloomy suggestions to all who passed that way.

But, although the mounds and the tombstones were gone the evidences of man’s 
mortality remained, and the history of the spot will be brought back to the 
recollection of man by these discoveries unearthed by the sewerage shovels.

Additional Comments:

More Glynn County Genealogy & History can be found at <www.glynngen.com>


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