Graveyard Destroyed By Tornado 145 Years Ago! (Part 1)

hey everybody it's robert and you're watching sidestep adventures and i got my friend dan out here now if you've seen the video before dan's a area historian some of the places i filmed so i brought him out here to a really interesting place that i wanted to see and he's going to tell me about and but this is very very fascinating place we're about to see it's a very old cemetery that was destroyed by a tornado back in 1875 and what's really interesting is we've often talked about development encroaching on these historic places and all around us right now as you saw in the beginning are modern houses growing up around the cemetery so that's pretty interesting to see and before we get up here i'll say that dan told me when we pulled up here that this used to be a really huge cemetery so it's absolutely crazy that houses are so close to it but uh let's go on up here it's always a pleasure always a pleasure to go out with you to go thanks all right let's do it so i can already see the cemetery right up there behind the uh a fence and you see just in the backyard there's a house right there this is when i was looking for this place before i i brought dan out here it i was surprised because i'd heard that it was just in the woods and it's definitely changed a lot the cemetery was always well kept years back and then it just kind of fell into disrepair as the families died the descendants of the families died out it's it's my understanding that this is where bethesda baptist church that is now located in ellsley that this is where the church began and the first church was built here if i'm not mistaken i believe it was 1828 shortly after the county was created and a terrible um tornado cyclone came through i believe was on march is either march 19th or march 20th i'm not certain but uh came through in 1875 and just completely devastated the whole community it cut a path several miles wide through here and it actually went all the way across the state of georgia there were several storms that same day and i think the following day as well but it came through and it just blew away a lot of homes and the stores school houses and and both churches and the church that was here was destroyed and uh later they reconstructed the church uh in ellerslie because that's where the you know the railroad later came through there and so the railroad also came through going from columbus to mcdonough georgia and most of the stores and churches relocated in either ellerslie or waverly hall all right so this is the grave of dr m w peters born march 22 1810 and died october 31st 1892. dr peters lived near here and he was one of the first people to get out after the tornado struck in march of 1875 and he went around trying to assist all the injured and he was the one that found the kennan family there was a mother and i believe five daughters that were all dead and uh and a house servant that was dead as well and they're all buried in the waverly hall cemetery all right so here we have mrs get the light out for this one mrs nj wife of mw peters born january 29 1818 and died march 2nd 1875. about two weeks before the storm did over here is mrs ap peters born august 11 1843 died of february 26 1879 here's james in ashford born june 1st 1870 and died august 11 1888. you can see on most of these graves something was on the top that's missing now this says to the memory of mrs o e ashford born february 9th 1838 and died august 25th 1891. at the bottom it says i am the resurrection and the life because i live ye shall live also keep a hinge right now all right so here we have solomon bickley born december 18th 1818 and died december 18th 1889 died on his birthday this is rebecca his wife born april 7 1814 and died november 9th 1881 is one of three brothers that came here simeon solomon and simon bickley and as dan pointed out just a minute ago while the camera was off there appears to be an unmarked grave right here you can see an indention in the ground and then right behind us over here some definite unmarked graves or graves that are only marked with fieldstone you can clearly see the indentions right there and another one right there you know when we were first coming up here it didn't look like there were as many graves as there are out here but i see them just continuing to go out in the woods i see a rock wall over there and another pretty impressive monument so over here is lara virginia wife of jd browning born september 29 1849 and died july 20th 1882. she was a kind and affectionate wife a fond mother and a friend to all there's an old funeral home placard laying in the leaves right here see if we can read it it says together forever john d browning and something booth browning cypress chapel 2315 warm springs road columbus georgia this would be lara yeah laura no doubt goes in here somewhere i'm gonna say there maybe this um it's possible this is her husband right here but there's no marker on it it's just these these stones here and i'm assuming that jd browning only ever got that it's over here we have mary c wife of robert stripling born february 24th 1842 and died january 9th 1896. at the bottom it says gone but not forgotten it looks like we have several unmarked graves right here there's an indention in the ground and another one there possibly out here it's kind of hard to tell some of these mounds of dirt here i was told is where giant trees that were in this cemetery that the storm took down where they were uprooted and you can see where a long time ago a tree fell across that wall right there breaking the wall down on two sides wow so there's a piece of a flip stone right here that this yucca plant's grown up over there's no writing on it though hey was this the cemetery i remember you had told me that there was a cemetery that was destroyed by a tornado and that they used the some of the broken pieces to make graze for some of the victims was this it this is right here we're just talking about this where this pile of bricks around this tree and and it looks like now that we're closer up on it that this was a grave here very similar to some of the 1870s graves at the mitchell cemetery and the trees growing up in the middle of it then you have all of this here look here's a monument that was destroyed by the tornado a grave see the pieces yep there's more pieces right here that's pretty fascinating to see so you think this pile of rubble was from the tornado they just all stacked it here cleaning up yes there used to be a lot more that was more evident of something having happened here that destroyed a lot of the monuments but that was in the early 1970s and that was you know the elements have taken over and a lot of it is uncovered up now but you can see this fence here that there's actually a fence around this plot there's it goes over that way the poster down this is one large grave and that's one large grave you know i actually saw something written on that it is yep it's a shame that that person's identity is lost yeah all right so we just uncovered one of these destroyed graves that has some writing on it the riding's so eroded away see 1830 at the bottom october 10th hold on let me get the light i might be able to make that out yeah there we go looks like mckee october 10th 17 39 maybe then at the bottom it says maybe 1830. wow so over here this is another another victim of the 1875 tornado this gravestone here you can see pieces all scattered about and there's this piece that actually looks like there's some writing on it leaned up against the tree so let's see if we can't make that out see i was told when that stone came through it carried away chimneys i mean it was that powerful i don't know what you call it now what a category five what are the categories of tornadoes you know i think five is the highest i mean it was supposedly a category five and it it just it carried away entire rock chimneys that i never found one piece of i think this is going to be now this is too worn but there there's definitely riding in there there's a there's a small line right across here that you hit with light i can't make it out i can make out something right there that's that's about it i see i see i can feel i can feel riding all through here and i can see the shadows in there and there must be an epitaph or something but this almost looks like a name but i guess we're not gonna find it out today you

Channel: Sidestep Adventures

Views: 24,997

Rating: 4.9913044 out of 5

Keywords: abandoned cemetery, cemetery, abandoned, haunted cemetery, abandoned places, abandoned cemetary, exploring abandoned places, abandoned cemetery house, abandoned cemetery in wales, abandned cemetery, abandoned cementery, abandoned house, abandoned cemetery philadelphia, abandoned grave yard, abandoned cemeteries, abandoned oriole cemetery and ghost town, abandoned & overgrown cemetery in the florida woods, abandoned graveyard, the abandoned cemetery, abandoned cemetery near me

Id: N8P2RtnpkGA

Length: 21min 13sec (1273 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 07 2020