THE PENITENTIARY CEMETERY, COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA Chicora Research Contribution 509 THE PENITENTIARY CEMETERY, COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA Prepared By: Michael Trinkley, Ph.D. and Debi Hacker CHICORA RESEARCH CONTRIBUTION 509 Chicora Foundation, Inc. PO Box 8664 Columbia, SC 29202 803-787-6910 www.chicora.org February 2009 This report is printed on permanent paper ∞ © 2009 by Chicora Foundation, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted, or transcribed in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without prior permission of Chicora Foundation, Inc. except for brief quotations used in reviews. Full credit must be given to the authors, and publisher. Death in anonymity is the ultimate insult to human dignity. — Kathy Reichs, forensic anthropologist and author. MANAGEMENT SUMMARY This report examines the development death date. Then a simple metal plate was of what has been called the Penitentiary substituted. But for much of the cemetery’s use Cemetery, Prison Cemetery, and Tickleberry the graves were either unmarked or marked in Cemetery over the past 100 years. It is located in the most transient fashion. As a result most of northwestern Columbia, South Carolina and as those buried at the penitentiary cemetery rest the name implies was used by the S.C. anonymously. Nevertheless, this research has Penitentiary (later the Department of identified 279 individuals known to be buried in Corrections) for the burial of its inmates. the cemetery. We estimate that there are perhaps 1,200 burials within the fenced area and to the Although structurally incomplete, the east, outside the fence (not including those penitentiary opened its doors in 1867. Less than moved to this location from Lower Cemetery – 15 years later the small plot used for inmate they would bring the total to 1,900). burials within the penitentiary walls had been filled and the new burial ground, discussed in Over its history, the cemetery received this study, was acquired in 1883. only minimal care by the prison and its usual condition was overgrown and largely forgotten. The pre-twentieth century history of South Carolina penal efforts demonstrates little Although Columbia’s Central concern for the individuals – mostly African Correctional Institute did not close until 1994, a American – that were committed to the facility. new cemetery was developed in 1988, behind Of far greater concern to the citizens of the state the Goodman Correctional Institute on Broad was that the prison be run in manner that River Road – situated on what used to be known eliminated all taxpayer costs. It is therefore no as Walden Farm. Even before the new cemetery wonder that for the first 68 years of the new was operating, control of the old cemetery was cemetery’s operation the prison kept almost no assumed by South Carolina’s Budget and records of burials. Control Board – an agency that had even less interest in the cemetery and its occupants than It wasn’t until the initiation of South the prison. In 1982 a significant portion of the Carolina’s death registration process in 1915 that property was sought by Cosmos Broadcasting death certificates can be used to identify Corporation – the parent of WIS TV – for a prisoners being buried at the penitentiary tower site. No arrangement was ever reached cemetery. Our examination of prison records since Cosmos was not willing to pay the and death certificates reveals that even these appraised value of the property. state mandated forms were inconsistently completed by prison officials. In 2000 the State Budget and Control Board disposed of the property to the City of Over time, several marking devices Columbia, which has held the tract since that were used by prison officials. For several time. During the past decade the condition of decades whitewashed concrete markers were the cemetery has steadily deteriorated. The once used, provid ing a name, prisoner number, and locked gates protecting the graves are now i THE PENITENTIARY CEMETERY, COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA broken and open. Many of the markers in the cemetery have been destroyed or stolen. The cemetery must be considered threatened – both by the development pressing along the Broad River and by the seemingly uncaring management of the City of Columbia. The cemetery is virtually forgotten by Columbia’s citizens, prison authorities, and its current owner, the City of Columbia. This study, however, reveals the history of the property, as well as the very large number of burials that have taken place on the property over the past 90 years. The cemetery requires – and deserves – a far higher standard of care than it has received over the past 20 years. In addition, should the cemetery ever need to be removed, it is important to realize not only the very large number of burials on the property, but also the extraordinary information held by the cemetery. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures iv Introduction 1 Background 1 An Overview 2 Historic Synopsis 5 The South Carolina Penitentiary 5 Death at the Prison, 1867-1882 11 The New Penitentiary Cemetery, 1883-ca. 1988 12 The New Cemetery at Goodman 21 The Cemetery 23 The Setting 23 Markers 26 Survey and Mapping 27 The Prisoners 31 Identified Burials 31 Analysis of Prison Deaths 32 Those Buried 33 Summary Overview 35 Other Prisons and Other Cemeteries 36 Recommendations 37 Sources Cited 39 Appendix 1. Burials at Penitentiary Cemetery 41 Appendix 2. Individuals Possibly Buried in the Penitentiary Cemetery 45 iii LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. The location of the Penitentiary Cemetery 1 2. View of the Penitentiary Cemetery in 2001 2 3. Farming activities at Walden Farm 6 4. Original cells in Cell Block 1 7 5. Death House at the penitentiary 7 6. Dormitory in Cell Block 2 9 7. The penitentiary in 1932 10 8. Drawing of the penitentiary in 1947 10 9. Old entrance being torn down in 1959 11 10. Plat of Robertson’s property sold to South Carolina in 1883 12 11. April 1938 aerial 13 12. May 1951 aerial 14 13. Plat of Tickleberry or Penitentiary Cemetery in 1955 15 14. Photo of a burial in the Penitentiary Cemetery 16 15. Funeral at Penitentiary Cemetery 16 16. Plan of Penitentiary Cemetery in 1965 17 17. 1977 grave relocations from Lower Cemetery 18 18. Columbia’s railroad relocation 18 19. City of Columbia plan of the Penitentiary Cemetery 19 20. Photograph of the Penitentiary Cemetery about 1990 20 21. Example of the USC Medical School markers at the Penitentiary Cemetery 20 22. View of the Penitentiary Cemetery 23 23. View of the cemetery looking northeast 23 24. Topographic map of the Penitentiary Cemetery 24 25. Styles of markers 25 26. Time of use for the concrete and metal markers 26 27. Examples of lost markers 26 28. Map of the Penitentiary Cemetery 28 29. Unmarked graves to the west of the fenced cemetery 29 30. Wood headboard 29 31. Granite boundary marker 30 32. Documented yard deaths 32 iv INTRODUCTION Background We have been asked about our interest in the cemetery – and more bluntly why it We first became aware of the should be considered important since it was Penitentiary Cemetery in 2000 when it became used only by “prisoners and convicts.” Many public that the City of Columbia had acquired are of the opinion that the cemetery was used the property in a land exchange deal with the for executed prisoners. Of course, neither is State of South Carolina. The cemetery was entirely true. The cemetery contains the infant visited, an initial sketch map produced, and the daughter of a female prisoner – a true innocent. cemetery was identified as archaeological site Most of those buried in the cemetery, while 38RD1182. Like our early work at Douglas prisoners, died from disease. Relatively few of Cemetery (Trinkley and Hacker 2008), the work the burials are of executed prisoners. at the Penitentiary Cemetery was unfunded and limited in nature. Beyond that, however, we need only point out that there have been 227 post- Since that time we have intermittently conviction DNA exonerations in the United mapped the cemetery and have conducted States – including one in South Carolina. considerable additional research on the Clearly, not all individuals who are in prisons, cemetery’s development, use, and final even on death rows, are guilty. abandonment. In 1912 Alex Weldon was executed – and buried in the penitentiary cemetery. His last words were, I am in this electric chair not for what I done, but for what somebody else done. I am about to go to eternity and I have made peace with my God. Facing eternity, I would not dare tell a lie, for I know, and you know, that nothing can save me from death in this chair. A lie now would do me no good . (The State, August 14, 1912, pg. 12). The cemetery also provides mute evidence for the Figure 1. Location of the Penitentiary Cemetery in northwestern way in which South Carolina has Columbia. 1 THE PENITENTIARY CEMETERY, COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA historically treated her prisoners. As Benjamin individuals on the fringe of society. Our goal, Perry remarked, the state and its law originated then, is to raise awareness of the Penitentiary with a people “whose fierce and savage feelings Cemetery and give those buried there a voice. were more easily influenced by the love of revenge and destruction than by any principle of An Overview justice, reason or equity” (quoted in Thomas 1983:i). Even Columbia’s not especially liberal The Penitentiary Cemetery is situated in newspaper occasionally ran articles such as the northwestern Columbia, between Elmwood one headlined, “Convicts No Better Than Dogs – (Columbia’s 168 acre historic rural landscape Another Instance of Talbert’s Neglect of Duty” cemetery that began in 1854) to the east and the (The State, June 16, 1891, pg.