| Colonial Park Cemetery | |
| Established: | (closed to burials in) |
| Country: | United States |
| Location: | 200 Abercorn Street Savannah, Georgia |
| Type: | Public municipal |
| Owner: | City of Savannah |
| Graves: | est. 9,000 |
| Findagraveid: | 33357 |
Colonial Park Cemetery (locally and informally known as Colonial Cemetery) is a historic cemetery located in downtown Savannah, Georgia. It became a city park in 1896,[1] 43 years after burials in the cemetery ceased.[2]
The cemetery was established in 1750, when Savannah was the capital of the British Province of Georgia, last of the Thirteen Colonies. By 1789 it had expanded three times to reach its current six acres bounded by East Oglethorpe Avenue (to the north), Habersham Street (east), East Perry Lane (south) and Abercorn Street (west). Savannah's primary public cemetery throughout its 103 active years, its previous names have included the Old Cemetery, Old Brick Graveyard, South Broad Street Cemetery, and Christ Church Cemetery.
Originally built as the burial ground for the Christ Church Parish, in 1789 it became a cemetery for Savannahians of all denominations.[1]
The Gaston Tomb was built in Colonial Park Cemetery in 1844, but was moved to Bonaventure Cemetery in 1873.[3]
The cemetery was closed to burials in 1853, some eight years before the start of the American Civil War, so no Confederate soldiers are interred there. After Union troops occupied Savannah on December 24, 1864, the graveyard became a temporary home to "several hundred" Union soldiers.[4] Soldiers allegedly damaged or defaced some of the stone markers (including altering some dates and ages) and sheltered inside vaults, including the Gaston Tomb.
More than 700 victims of Savannah's 1820 yellow fever epidemic are also buried here.
The remains of major general Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) reposed in the cemetery's Graham vault between 1786 and 1901, at which point they were reinterred in Johnson Square, along with the remains of his eldest son, George. His remains had shared the vault with those of John Maitland, his arch-rival in the Revolutionary War. Maitland's remains were returned to his native Scotland in 1981.