Six Feet South: Magnolia Cemetery


January 13, 2013 — I’m never going to be able to call a cemetery cool anymore if it doesn’t have Spanish moss. And alligator warning signs. And Civil War submarine victims.

Magnolia cemetery is a 160-year-old, 92-acre cemetery located on Cunnington Avenue in the northern area of Charleston, South Carolina. It’s ringed by two other cemeteries, some marshland, and an industrial property with massive squat white silos that form an eerie vista from some of the cemetery borders.

And the whole place has atmosphere oozing in floods from its graveholes, especially on the rainy day that we were there. Massive twisted trees, grave architecture that ranges from a giant pyramid to Victorian-style pieces, crumbling tombstones, and just everything you’d want to call a cemetery home…eventually.

Of course, I can only assume that the sweltering South Carolina summer adds to its mystique.

The next day we went to Savannah, Georgia, and checked out its famous Bonaventure Cemetery….but Magnolia had already heisted its lightning.


Yeah, that's an infant grave shaped like a
baby cradle.

Decapitated grave. The urn that once
topped this pillar is in the foreground.








These are only some of the graves and only part of the
memorial for the victims Civil War submarine H.L. Hunley,
but I want to save those for when I post about our visit
the the remains of the submarine itself.