Case study

Cemetery Delineation

Warren County Cemetery Studies

Delineation of over 200 graves from four abandoned cemeteries in Warren County, Georgia locates the final interments of plantation families, their enslaved African Americans and the descendants of both.

By W. Dean Wood
Produced for Central Savannah River Area, Regional Development Center
Winters 2003 and 2004

As the Unified Development Authority and the Regional Development Center in Augusta, Georgia began studying a large tract of land in nearby Warren County, planners discovered four abandoned cemeteries on the property. Southern Research was hired to delineate the cemeteries and prepare a re-location plan in the event the cemeteries could not be avoided. Two-hundred and four graves were mapped and precisely located representing black and white farmers and their families from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. At the Lazenby Cemetery, we prepared measured drawings and photographs of four large marble monuments marking the interments of plantation owners and their families with burials dating between 1880 and 1928. Less than 100 feet north and northeast of the Lazenby family interments, we mapped nearly 100 unmarked graves presumed to be enslaved African Americans and their descendants. Other nearby cemeteries included the graves of German Tucker (1794 — 1821), Mrs. Amanda M. Hill (1838 — 1862), Bill Sinkfield (1898 — 1916), Munch L. Belle (1868 — 1943), Sallie Belle (1876 — 1934), George Hill (? — 1943), Ida Hill (? — 1943), and J. M. Myrick (1873 — 1937).