Driving into Yatesville, this headstone caught my attention, but I figured it would be like others I’ve found throughout the countryside: a small family plot long forgotten by the passage of time. And though that was true to some extent, what I learned about the man who was buried here was quite fascinating. It turns out that this was the cemetery of Bellwood Hall, a plantation owned by one of Georgia’s early country doctors, David Lane Kendall, Sr. (1790-1850).

Dr. Kendall was born in Washington County in 1790 and moved to Upson County in 1830 where he and his second wife, Louisa Rogers Steele Kendall (1804-1881), built Bellwood, a grand plantation house complete with formal gardens. The property was likely maintained by enslaved men and women. It was destroyed by fire sometime in the late 1800s, but thanks to the foresight of Dr. Kendall’s daughter, Louisa “Loula” Winifred Kendall Rogers (1838-1931) , much of its history survives in special collections at Emory University.