{"nrhp_refnum":"78000972","name":"Laurel Grove-South Cemetery","other_names":[],"category":"site","location":{"address":"37th St.","address_restricted":false,"city":"Savannah","county":"Chatham County","state":"GA","lat":32.06043969000004,"lon":-81.11586668844768,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"1978-09-06","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Black","Religion"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"Laurel Grove-South is a cemetery in Savannah, Chatham County, Georgia, set aside from 1852 for the burial of free people of color and slaves. It is separated from the white section of Laurel Grove and is owned by the City of Savannah.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the cemetery is a significant record of Black social history in the Savannah area, especially for the nineteenth century. Its markers are often the only surviving public documentation of prominent Black pastors, educators, legislators and artisans. The layout, marker types and mass re-interment of slave graves also show changing social and economic status.","narrative":"Laurel Grove-South is a cemetery of roughly fifteen acres (a later amendment corrects the figure to about 35) at the western end of 37th Street in Savannah. It was laid out after 1850 as the section of Laurel Grove for free people of color and slaves, based on a plan by engineer J. O. Morse and carried out by landscape gardener William George. In 1855 burials from the old potter's field and Black cemetery were moved here, and a row of stones marks the mass re-interment. Markers are mostly small tablets, with few mausolea and some brick vaults. The cemetery holds the graves of Andrew Bryan, Andrew Marshall, Henry Cunningham, educator Jane Deveaux, and legislators James Simms and Ulysses Houston. Their inscriptions preserve details of lives rarely recorded elsewhere. The grounds also show social change through grave markers, from carved stones to names pressed into concrete.","period_of_significance":"1852 to present","architect_builder":"J. O. Morse","architectural_style":null,"criteria":[],"status_note":"Occupied and in use as a cemetery, publicly owned. The row of stones marking the 1855 mass grave is overgrown with vines and many stones are sinking into the sandy soil. NAACP-funded restorations of several ministers' graves were done in 1972-73.","vacant_flag":false,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-sonnet-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.0-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 02:55:41.037466-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/lz/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_GA/78000972.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/93207322","wikipedia":null,"wikidata":null},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/georgia/chatham-county/laurel-grove-south-cemetery-78000972/"}