Though I will always be of Wilson, I have lived in Atlanta nearly all of my adult life. It is very much “home” for me, too, and is a bottomless well of African-American culture and history that often informs the way I process research and work related to Black Wide-Awake and Lane Street Project.
I’ve begun visiting metro Atlanta’s historic African-American burial grounds. How have they weathered exploding population growth, shifting demographics, outmigration, land loss, and other pressures? The eighth in a series — Colbert (formerly Calvary) Cemetery in Calhoun, Georgia.
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Colbert Cemetery, also known as Calvary, lies at the top of a hill at the end of steep road on the edge of Calhoun, Georgia. Calhoun, a town of about 16,000, is in far north Georgia on land that once held the capital of the Cherokee Nation. As is typical of the area, its African-American population is low — only about 7%. Early in the twentieth century, this percentage dropped from about 15% with the exodus created by the Great Migration.
In 1841, Atlanta founder and railroad tycoon Richard Peters bought 4000 acres in Gordon County. He worked 2500 acres with enslaved African Americans and set aside a burial ground for them on this site. About 1910, Peters’ children deeded the cemetery to trustees for use by Calhoun’s Black community, many of whom were descended from people enslaved at Peters Plantation.
The Porches are one of the largest families buried at Colbert. Both J.L. and Sina Porch were born enslaved.
You know I love a vernacular grave marker. Here are two of a set of three similar “stones.”
These embossed markers, likely provided by a funeral home, mostly date from the 1930s to 1950s.
One of a relatively few fieldstone markers.
Seventy miles up the road from Atlanta, an Eldren Bailey marker.
The cemetery was active as recently as 2016 and is a much-visited space.
Squire Frix appears as a ten year-old farm laborer in the 1870 federal census of the Town of Calhoun living as part of the household of white insurance agent Joseph W. Malone.
Like Odd Fellows Cemetery, Colbert is dotted with yucca plants marking grave sites.
Unusually, several bronze military markers were installed upright, rather than flats designed.
Caroline Heard was about 75 years old when she died in 1921.
In the valley below, new construction wraps around the base of the hill. Gordon County Civic Club, which oversees Colbert Cemetery, is engaged in protracted litigation against the developer, asserting that the subdivision may encroach on hidden graves.
Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, May 2026.