Southern Cemetery

The South is known for being downright quirky and sometimes odd but always interesting, and that includes our cemeteries…

Let’s kick this post off with one of the most startling headstone I’ve found for Moses Harshaw who ‘Died and Gone to Hell’ aka The Meanest Man Alive. Y’all, this guy was a right asshole and was the epitome of the ‘worst of the worst.’ Honestly, some of the history surrounding his life and his subsequent actions are just stomach churning. Slavery, elder abuse, abuse of a corpse, murder and the list goes on…

Moses Harshaw [1794-1858], known as the meanest man alive, is one of those individuals who didn’t make life better for those in his orbit. 
One of the earliest white settlers to Habersham County, Harshaw migrated with his family from Burke County, North Carolina, in 1822. Settling in the Nacoochee Valley in what is now White County, Harshaw and his wife Nancy English Harshaw had seven children. 
They settled into life in the valley, with more than 20 slaves to work the land and the gold mines on his land; he also hired out his slaves to other mine owners. 
Representing himself in court, he was found guilty on six of seven charges of assault and battery in the Superior Court of Habersham from 1829 to 1844. Another trial for assault for attempted murder never made it to court. The court records tell the story of those cases, but oral history truly cements Harshaw’s reputation as an evil menace. 
He was notoriously cruel to those individuals he owned, forcing the elderly and infirm off the peak of Lynch Mountain when they became an economic drain, no longer valuable to him. 
And when he went into town, he took a helper along, but they were not allowed to ride in the wagon. Harshaw attached a rope from the back of the wagon to the neck of the unfortunate individual, forcing him to run to keep up with the horse. 
A tragic story of a young enslaved girl likely turned his wife Nancy England against him once and for all. After returning home to discover his wife had purchased a dress for the child to be buried in, he demanded her grave be dug up, and the dress removed from the body and returned to the store for credit. 
Long-suffering spouse Nancy England Harshaw was first in line when in 1850, the state of Georgia made divorce legal.  The articles of separation, dated October 7, 1850, reference the cause of the split as “from an incompatibility of taste and uncongeniality of temper and disagreement of pursuits, bickering, heartburnings, and strife have discovered that it is impossible they should longer live together in peace and harmony and have therefore have agreed to separate from bed and board and absolve, release and forever discharge each other from all conjugal rights, privileges duties and liabilities, further agreeing to live separate and apart and abstain in all and every way from interfering with or molesting each other in all and every way their pursuit of present and eternal happiness.”
She had the final word, too, when she had Harshaw’s grave marker carved – “Died and Gone to Hell,” a fitting epitaph to a man whose black soul found no redemption on this side of eternity. 

His marker was originally made of wood so it didn’t last long in the Georgia elements but it’s always replaced in the same style and bearing the same epitaph. The historical society and community are determined to keep the OG style so Harshaw will never escape his gross deeds!

It’s a bit hard to see under all the lichen but there’s a map there! Mary Irving died in 1828 from a snakebite and this map shows a very vague area of where the sneaky serpent sunk its fangs into Mary.

And yes, if you have a naughty mind like mine then there is some, um, interesting looking biz happening on the stone *cough* *penisandballs* *cough* but if you don’t see it then please ignore my crass trash talk.

Part lore, part history, this story is one that continues until this day and Mary’s grave is quite the popular stop for those cemetery explorers who love an odd story…

The resting place of actor Karl Slover has not only one of most famous movie lines in the history of movies ever but it’s also carved with a number of its characters – Dorothy, Toto, the Tin Man and more. I’m talking about The Wizard of Oz, of course, and Slover had a direct connection. He was one of the Munchkins! He played a trumpeter as well as a smattering of other roles and when he passed in 2011 he was one of the last surviving Munchkins left.

While his early life was fraught with sadness and forced labor (his father sold him to a Vaudeville troupe when Karl was 9 years old) he retired to a quiet life in a tiny southern town. Now he rests under the Georgia sun and the Georgia clay, and fans of the movie still stop by to leave tokens of respect to Karl’s theatrical contributions…

I think 3 is a good number to end this post on although I have boocoodles more to share. Stay tuned!