The Forsyth City Cemetery, also known as Oakland, is thought to have been first associated with the Forsyth Methodist Church, who built a church and adjacent burying ground in 1828. The church is long gone but the cemetery has expanded greatly. It’s a bit curious, though, that the earliest known burial dates to 1827. All that is known of the decedent, Elizabeth Griffin Beal, (1808-1827), is that she was the wife of Robert Beal and daughter of William and Rachel Griffin. A typical young wife and sadly, a typical early death. Nothing extraordinary in those facts. But the fact that her memorial predates the church cemetery suggests that the property may have been used as early as the founding of Forsyth in 1823.

This burial ground is one of those great repositories of local history, with a wide range of funerary memorials and markings and, when compared to some of our other cemeteries, is quite easy to navigate, by car and by foot. It has a Confederate section and and African-American section. I only photographed a few memorials and markers and they’re presented here in no particular order.

The mausoleum of the family of Isaac Whiting Ensign (1820-1907) is one of the architectural highlights of the cemetery. Ensign was a native of Connecticut.

This is a small portion of the Confederate section. The nearby Methodist church served as a hospital during the Civil War and many casualties of the Atlanta Campaign were brought here for care and/or burial. Of the nearly 300 burials in this section, a large number are unknown.

Many of the unknown Confederate markers were honored with American flags, which is wrong on many levels, not the least of which being that when they died they were not Americans. I presume it was done purposefully since there are many but I don’t understand the reasoning. I’m sure someone will attempt to explain at some point. The Confederate flag may not belong in many places, but on the grave of an unknown Confederate soldier is certainly one of the places it would be expected to be found.

The modern memorial for Only Patience Outlaw Anderson (1777-1864) was placed by Anderson descendants in 2017, and made by the Barnesville Marble Company. Her name got my attention first. Only Patience Outlaw. But I learned that she was a refugee in Civil War-era Forsyth who died while here. The marker notes that she was the matriarch of early East Tennessee family, Daughter of Col. Alexander Outlaw & Penelope Smith Outlaw. Widow of Hon Joseph Inslee Anderson, Bvt. Major Revolutionary War, U. S. Territorial Judge, U. S. Senator Tennessee, 1st Comptroller U. S. Treasury. He was the namesake of Andersonville and Anderson County, Tennessee.

This is the Oliver Morse (1802-1868) family enclosure, at least he was the oldest decedent I found. Low fences made of local stone are found mostly in cemeteries north of the Fall Line, though many have collapsed and intact examples are increasingly uncommon. They are usually associated with locally prominent families.

The Pye family enclosure may be my favorite in the Forsyth City Cemetery, for its presence of these old brick crypts, some of which are in very poor condition. The earliest readable memorial here dates to 1852, and I’m sure these brick crypts are much older.