Myrtle Hill Cemetery

About this property

Myrtle Hill Cemetery is the second-oldest cemetery in the city of Rome, Georgia. The cemetery is at the confluence of the Etowah River and Oostanaula River and to the south of downtown Rome across the South Broad Street bridge. Three of Rome's seven hills were chosen as burial grounds - Lumpkin Hill, Myrtle Hill, and Mount Aventine because of the flooding of Rome's three rivers - Etowah, Oostanaula and Coosa. Myrtle Hill was named for its Vinca minor (trailing myrtle) on the hill. The cemetery covers 32 acres (130,000 m2) on six terraces and is listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Myrtle Hill cemetery is the final resting place of more than 20,000 people including doctors, politicians, football heroes, soldiers (including America's Known Soldier), a First Lady of the United States, and Rome's founders. "Where Romans Rest" is an annual tour of Myrtle Hill Cemetery, given by the Greater Rome Convention & Visitors Bureau. Before becoming a cemetery, the hill gained notability as an 18th-century battle site. In September 1793, General John Sevier, in command of 800 men, came to the area on an unauthorized mission. Sevier was pursuing 1,000 Cherokees who had scalped and killed thirteen settlers at Cavett's Station, near Knoxville. The pursuit ended in Georgia, when Sevier caught up with the Cherokee at the village of what he called Hightower (Etowah, or Itawayi), which is near the present-day site of Cartersville, Georgia. The Cherokee created a defensive position on Myrtle Hill and used a guard to try to prevent Sevier from fording the rivers. Sevier left a written account of the battle, in which he described an attempt to cross the Etowah River about a mile south of Myrtle Hill, drawing the Cherokee defenders out of their prepared positions, then galloping back to Myrtle Hill to cross there. The Cherokee rushed back to contest the crossing of the Etowah, but failed. When the Cherokee leader, Kingfisher, was killed, the remaining warriors fled, and Sevier burned the village. Evidence of the battle was found in the form of Cherokee bones and relics in the crevasses of the hill. In 1901, the Xavier chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution erected a stone monument to Sevier which describes the battle to honor Sevier and the battle. The monument is located between Myrtle Hill Cemetery and the Etowah River by the South Broad Street bridge. After the Battle of Hightower, the hill was largely undisturbed until white settlers came to western Georgia in search of gold. The Dahlonega, Georgia gold discovery (gold rush) of 1829 brought prospectors and settlers into the area of present-day Rome. The Indian Removal, or Trail of Tears, which took place between 1830 and 1838, forced the Cherokee to abandon their holdings in the area. The former Cherokee territory was then allotted to white settlers. The city of Rome, founded in 1834 by Colonel Daniel R. Mitchell, Colonel Zachariah Hargrove, Major Phillip Hemphill, Colonel William Smith, and John Lumpkin, established Oak Hill (opened in 1837) as Rome's first cemetery. Thirteen years later, when Oak Hill Cemetery was nearly out of lots, the need for a second cemetery became apparent.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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