Originally known as Fayetteville Town Cemetery, the cemetery was established in 1823. The name was changed to the Fayetteville City Cemetery in 1902 when the town of Fayetteville became a city. The county was a farming community with few professional people living in the area. The 1830 US Census, the first for our county, shows the entire population of Fayette County as 5504. The city limits of Fayetteville was much smaller during this time, and in the downtown area, churches did not have cemeteries. Although no deed or bill of sale has been found, William Bennett, a citizen who owned a great deal of land, is rumored to have purchased the two acres for the cemetery. William Bennett had purchased other land and donated it for other uses; he purchased one acre of land that the Fayetteville Academy was built on, which is the same property that the Glynn St Primary School occupied for many years and later Fayetteville City Hall. 

Several of the most notable and visited graves are those of the family of Margaret Mitchell, the author who penned the 1936 classic novel Gone with the Wind. According to local lore, Mitchell used stories in the book that she heard while visiting her relatives and that the Holliday-Dorsey-Fife House was her inspiration for her glorious Tara. Mitchell’s cousin “Doc” Holliday also has family buried in the cemetery as he lived in Griffin and would travel to Fayetteville to visit them. Of course, his mode of transportation would have been by horseback or horse and buggy during that era. The road was dirt until the 1900s in the cemetery, and the deceased would enter to their final resting place by wagon. Still an active cemetery, there are several burials each year. 

We are continuing to improve and restore the Historic Fayetteville Cemetery. We'd love to have a family representative for each person buried in Historic Fayetteville Cemetery for our records. Please contact us to send us email an with your contact information.