10/18/2026
HOW DID CEMETERIES CHANGE IN GORDON COUNTY?
In Gordon County’s early communities, families often laid their loved ones to rest on their own property. A portion of a family farm or homestead would be set aside as a burial ground, most times becoming a resting place for many generations of the same family.
On larger antebellum estates, both family and enslaved workers were buried on the property and were most often segregated from the dedicated plots for family. However, most early white settlers were not wealthy plantation owners. Instead, their homestead burial grounds contained immediate and extended family, and on occasion, workers who lived and worked on the farm without family of their own would be given a space in the homestead plot.
But not every family burial ground remained private. As communities grew, some burial grounds that began on private family land eventually served the broader public. Chandler Cemetery is one local example of how that transition took place.
During the 1830s, Abraham Chandler acquired a 600-acre plantation in Gordon County and established his family home. When he passed away in 1847, his family selected a wooded hill overlooking the family home as his final resting place. In 1854, his wife, Mary “Polly” Chandler, was laid to rest beside him. Two years later, the Chandler heirs deeded the hilltop burial ground to the town of Calhoun for public use, creating what is now known as Chandler Cemetery.
By the late 1800s, a similar transition was taking place at Fain Cemetery.
Fain Cemetery was already being used for family burials when Joel C. Fain offered the property to Calhoun for burial purposes in 1879. The legal transfer was never completed, and after Fain’s death in 1895, the property passed into the possession of N. J. Boaz. In 1898, Boaz deeded three acres to Calhoun and the surrounding community for use as a burial ground, placing the cemetery under municipal control.
As burial grounds became more established public cemeteries, their appearance and upkeep were changing as well. By the late 1800s and early 1900s, cemetery design was becoming more organized across the country, and Gordon County reflected many of those changes. Family lots were laid out, trees and undergrowth were cleared, and stone walls, hedges, and driveways were added. Larger monuments and defined family plots also became more common.
By the mid-20th century, another style of cemetery was becoming more common: the memorial park. These cemeteries were designed with open lawns and flat grave markers, creating a more uniform landscape. Haven of Rest and Gordon Memorial Park are examples found here in Gordon County.
