Lower Cemetery
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Lower Cemetery

Also known as Elmwood Lower Cemetery , Potters Field #03

Columbia, Richland County, South Carolina, USA

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  • Get directions At the end of Elmwood Ave. off I-126
    Columbia, South Carolina 29201 United States
    Coordinates: 34.00939, -81.05720
  • Cemetery ID:

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Between the Columbia Canal and Randolph Cemetery.

The cemetery can be accessed from Pinckney St from a tunnel under I-126, if the gate is unlocked.

This cemetery, containing burials of both white and black indigent and poor, was started as the third "potter's field" after the Columbia Public Burying Ground closed in 1856; it was used for over 100 years. From death certificate records, it appears more than 12,000 burials took place. Several graves were moved in the 1950s to the State Penitentiary Cemetery (just to the north) by McCormick Funeral Home when I-126 was widened, and more were moved in the 1980s when railroads were relocated. The rest of what is left is completely overgrown with large trees, except for a small cleared portion a utility company maintains beneath overhead lines.

Wooden planks were used as grave markers prior to 1915 and were often lost.

The Chicora Foundation addresses this cemetery in their December 2009 research paper Columbia's Scandal: Lower Cemetery. It is available on their website.







Between the Columbia Canal and Randolph Cemetery.

The cemetery can be accessed from Pinckney St from a tunnel under I-126, if the gate is unlocked.

This cemetery, containing burials of both white and black indigent and poor, was started as the third "potter's field" after the Columbia Public Burying Ground closed in 1856; it was used for over 100 years. From death certificate records, it appears more than 12,000 burials took place. Several graves were moved in the 1950s to the State Penitentiary Cemetery (just to the north) by McCormick Funeral Home when I-126 was widened, and more were moved in the 1980s when railroads were relocated. The rest of what is left is completely overgrown with large trees, except for a small cleared portion a utility company maintains beneath overhead lines.

Wooden planks were used as grave markers prior to 1915 and were often lost.

The Chicora Foundation addresses this cemetery in their December 2009 research paper Columbia's Scandal: Lower Cemetery. It is available on their website.







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  • Added: 28 Jan 2011
  • Find a Grave Cemetery ID: 2386501