Haunting Images from Decatur Cemetery, The oldest burial site in Metro Atlanta

Today I spent most of this St. Patrick's day exploring Decatur Cemetery, a local burial ground that pre-dates the city's incorporation in 1823. It is the oldest cemetery in metro Atlanta and has many grave sites dating back to the 1700's. It is also the final resting place of countless soldiers from the civil war.

I was really interested in the way some of the old grave stones had degraded with time while others remained looking almost new after 200 years. Also I noticed that many if not most of the older graves were those of infants and children, although sad it should make us appreciate the state of science and medicine today since it was pretty normal to lose children to diseases back in those days.

I shot a lot of photos today while traversing the huge area that the cemetery encompasses, these are my favorites. I tried to capture some of the grave stones that I felt had the most character and the areas that surround them.

Fortunately the cemetery is only a couple miles from the house that I recently moved into so I will probably be returning there often to continue exploring some of the areas that I didn't make it to today.

If you're interested in learning more, you can read about Decatur Cemetery here on Wikipedia: Decatur Cemetery