Hurricane Helene damages historic cemeteries in Augusta

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – City leaders focused hurricane recovery efforts on the living, but Helene disrupted the dead and caused damage to cemeteries throughout Augusta.

If you’re considering taking a stroll through one of the city’s historic cemeteries, let us stop you.

All have been closed since the hurricane hit over a month ago, with no date in sight for reopening.

They are closed and people are locked out.

But behind the rusted padlocks, barbed wire and crumbling brick walls lie signs of a history rewritten by Hurricane Helene.

Every step further into the cemetery is anything but a resting place.

“This is the hardest blow,” said Joyce Law, curator of Fitten Street Cemetery.

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From sunken remains of war heroes to movers and shakers, moved and shaken from their final resting place.

“The historic Smiley family, they were entrepreneurs here in the Sand Hills Historic District,” Law said.

Some sites look like they came out of a ghost story.

“You can see that many flags have been broken in half by the force of the wind,” Law said.

The stories here belong on the pages of history books.

“So there are over 50 military veterans ranging from the Spanish-American War to Vietnam,” she said.

Law’s own military career prepared her to uncover the lost history buried in Summerville Cemetery – the Fitton Street Cemetery.

“When I was collecting information for First World War memorials in 2018, I just promised that if I had more time, I would dedicate my time to this cemetery, because there is so much history here that has not been documented for the general public. ,” said Wet.

Augusta-Richmond County website states that not much is known about this cemetery, except that supposedly 12 residents of Black Summer Hill purchased the land in 1906 for a black cemetery. The location of the record book is unknown or whether it even exists.

But through military documents and oral histories from family members, Law was able to discover more.

She has pieced together the incredible history of the Sand Hills community.

“Borkin Wright was once attorney general of the state and where he lived, his house is now used on the Summerville campus of Augusta University and there are a number of farm workers who are buried here in the cemetery, so we are looking at the From 1870 until the 1950s,” said Law.

The men and women of the historic Sand Hills community not only served their influential neighbors, but built Augusta and the system for the Black August boom.

‘That’s James Magnett on the left. He is a second-generation general contractor and was one of the principal stonemasons on the Sluskey Building that is now the headquarters of R.W. Allen,” said Law.

“The gentleman we’re going to, Afra Barrington, was one of the charter directors for the savings and loan,” she said.

“Thomas J. Walker is one of the founders of the Tribunal Life Insurance Company. This is his older brother Rev. Samuel Walker. He was the third pastor at Elim and Walker Baptist Institute.”

She has spent the past six years uncovering the stories buried beneath these unmarked graves.

“So we have a lot of great stories of wealth and achievement, but also of heartbreak,” Law said.

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She felt her own heartbreak as she saw the devastation caused by Hurricane Helene.

“I thought about all our work that had just been done and it had been destroyed,” she said.

The Fitton Street Cemetery is privately owned, but Augusta-Richmond County maintains it.

The city itself owns five cemeteries, all of which have yet to reopen since the hurricane hit over a month ago.

“Then I thought about it because we had been working on it, other people will say yes. This is a valuable piece of Augusta history that we must continue to preserve and celebrate,” said Law.

But the story of Summerville Cemetery Fitton Street is just beginning.

The mayor doesn’t yet know how much it will cost to repair the city’s cemeteries, like Magnolia, but he’s hopeful FEMA will help.

Fitten Street, however, is a different story. It is privately owned.

The cost of the repair is $50,000.