Walter Hall is a native Columbian now living at Lake Murray in the Chapin area. He is retired and volunteers as an interpretive guide for Historic Columbia and an all around history buff.... READ MORE >
In the 1800s, James. M. Van Metre owned and operated a large furniture store and cabinet making business and a funeral home at 1313-1319 Main Street. Saluda Virginia Van Metre, daughter of James. M. Van Metre, married John S. Dunbar, a Columbia druggist and trained mortician. At the death of James Van Metre, his estate was divided among his children.... READ MORE >
Prior to the Civil War, people made their own caskets or they were made by cabinet or furniture makers like Milo H. Berry, who by 1868, had both a successful Columbia furniture store as well as a popular undertaker.... READ MORE >
By 1909, African American patients were being buried at the edge of the hospital’s farm in a 3.6 acre cemetery “north of the dairy farm.” Access was by a dirt road (now called Sligh Avenue) cut by a “county chain gang” in 1899. The cemetery was used until 1923 and intermittently after that. In 1983, the city used the cemetery... READ MORE >
Property was acquired by the State Hospital in 1896 from the Wallace family for burial of white patients. Initially it was a hog lot on the Wallace’s Bellvue Place plantation. Part of the property was set aside for the burial of Confederate Veterans and dependents. This State Hospital Cemetery was to the east of the small Confederate Cemetery. The State... READ MORE >
Conclusions of a 1910 legislative investigation of Elmwood Cemetery State Hospital “Lot 41” stated: “The present conditions of the lot at Elmwood is a disgrace. It is overgrown with weeds and bushes to the height of a man’s head, the graves are sunken and the wooden headpieces have rotted down and are gone.” Authorities had been ordering graves be dug... READ MORE >
At least 12 different cemeteries have been used by the South Carolina State Hospital since its inception in 1828. Five are major downtown church cemeteries. Others were buried in the “public burying ground.” After the Civil War, patients who were not “sent home” for burial—white patients were placed in Elmwood Cemetery and black patients in “paupers cemetery.” By the turn... READ MORE >
From 1867, when the prison was constructed, until 1883, approximately 248 individuals were buried in a small 0.1 acre plot on the original prison (CCI) grounds. By 1879, it was so full that new burials exposed bones from earlier burials. When CCI was demolished this first prison cemetery was lost beneath the Canal Side homes and apartments. No archaeological investigation... READ MORE >
The property for Douglas Cemetery was purchased in 1908 by the Metropolitan Development Company who soon sold it to the Douglas Company who created the cemetery. By 1915 there were 85 documented burials. The property changed hands many times, from the original owner to the Douglas Company, to William P. Donelon in 1935, to James F. Dreher in 1938, to... READ MORE >
Randolph Cemetery was the first cemetery formally established for the city’s African-American community. In 1871, 19 local black legislators and businessmen came together to form an association to establish a respectable place for burial for blacks in Columbia. Prior to this period, African-Americans were buried near the river in the local Potter’s Field (Lower Cemetery). The group initially purchased three... READ MORE >
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