MUSCOGEE COUNTY GA Cemetery - Porterdale (African-American) File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Pamela Bates-Kyle http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/muscogee/cemeteries/porter.txt ======================== USGENWEB NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be freely used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages cannot be reproduced in any format for profit or other presentation. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for FREE access. ============== PORTERDALE CEMETERY (partial listing - we welcome your additions to this list) Location: In the City of Columbus, Ga., between 6th and 7th Streets and Victory Drive and 4th. Webb, Charlotte Henderson May 1810 - Apr 8, 1903 Wife of George Henderson, Jordan Webb O'Neal, Green May 1860 - Oct 31,1924 Husband of Delia Henderson (Webb) Son of Judge O'Neal, (mother unknown) O'Neal, Delia Henderson (Drake) (Webb) Apr 1853 - Jun 2 1921 Wife of Green O'Neal Daughter of George Henderson and Charlotte Henderson Webb Dixon, George (Wash) Washington 1840 - Mar 9, 1905 Husband of Hannah Dixon, Emily Harris Dixon O'Neal, Elias Aug 1884 - Mar 24, 1911 Son of Green and Delia O'Neal According to the book "Columbus, Georgia" by Judith Grant, "the Porterdale cemetery was named after Richard P. Porter, an African American who served as sexton from 1878 until 1920. This cemetery is located within the City of Columbus, Ga., between 6th and 7th Streets and Victory Drive and 4th. Just past the cemetery, Victory Drive runs alongside the Chattahoochee River. The cemetery has numerous graves, but few have markers. Last year, the Sexton there told me that this is where all black people (35,000) in the area were buried beginning in 1828. This cemetery was also known as the "colored" cemetery. Ms. Grant's book also notes that the "tombstone of Bragg Smith, died on September 30, 1903 at age 32 in the heroic, but fruitless effort to rescue the (white) city engineer from a caving excavation on Eleventh Street" sits right outside the Porterdale Cemetery. It reads "Honor and fame from no condition rise. Act well your part, there all the honor lies". "Columbus is the only city in the Southeast to have erected a monument to a black man at that time in history. This book also mentions that in earlier years, there was an old slave burial ground located in Columbus. "The book of city minutes spelled out that (these) graves were dug with head to the west and feet to the east", according to slave tradition. This was the exact position of my gr gr grandfather, Green O'Neal's grave. Pam (Dixon) Bates-Kyle