Take a Walk in the Decatur Cemetery

This is  a great time of year to wander around the Decatur Cemetery. Take a guided tour with the Walking Tour Brochure that you can download here.

The walking tour brochure provides an overview of 40 of the most interesting sites at Decatur Cemetery. Among them are the resting places of three veterans of the American Revolution, a monument standing over a field where numerous orphans are buried, and the final resting place of Dr. Thomas Holley Chivers, who abandoned his medical training for poetry and was described by Edgar Allen Poe as “one of the best and one of the worst poets in America.”

The brochure, in describing the 40 sites, provides a glimpse of Decatur’s history. The 58-acre cemetery dates to 1823 (it’s a full decade older than Atlanta) and provides an interesting overview of how the nation’s attitude about cemetery design (and death) has changed over the years.

The brochure includes a map of the cemetery, lots of color photographs, and a short collection of “cemetery manners” to ensure that the dignity of the site is not compromised.