Follow
Greenwood Cemetery is a city cemetery established in c. 1820 in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, U.S.. It is the oldest cemetery in the city and is located near the First African Baptist Church. It has a historical marker erected in 1996 by City of Tuscaloosa, the Heritage Commission of Tuscaloosa County, and Cahaba Trace Commission. Greenwood Cemetery is listed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage since July 26, 1983.
The exact founding date of Greenwood Cemetery is not known with many sources stating 1820, however others have stated 1819 and 1821. The cemetery has some 1,500 graves. Many of the early marble headstones were carved in New Orleans, Louisiana.[2] It contains a main entrance with an ornate iron gate.
Greenwood Cemetery is the resting place for five veterans of the American Revolution. Several key figures in the city's history can also be found at the cemetery including former mayors, and Tuscaloosa's first probate judge.
A team of volunteers maintain and clean the cemetery grounds.
Burials
- John Drish of the Drish Mansion
- Elijah Wolsey Peck, Chief Justice of the Alabama Supreme Court
- Phillip Dale Roddey, Confederate General
- Rev. Charles Allen Stillman, Founder of Stillman College
Laid out in the original city plan, Greenwood is Tuscaloosa’ oldest surviving cemetery. It has been in continuous use since prior to 1820. The earliest marked grave is dated 1821.
Some of the ornate marble markers located in Greenwood were carved in New Orleans, however, many were carved from local sandstone by masons working on the state capitol once located three blocks north. Only grass covers many of the older plots of African and Native Americans and white settlers.
Greenwood is the final resting place of five veterans of the American Revolution, Confederate General Phillip Dale Roddy, Sallie Ann Swope, volunteer Civil War nurse, Jack and Jerry Winn who worked to buy their freedom from slavery and Solomon Perteat, a prominent antebellum “free man of color” as well as more than 2,500 other individuals in marked and unmarked graves.
Find a Grave