In a cemetery full of memorable people, stories that span over 11 involved wars and unique funerary art, there are some particular tales and lives lived that have my specific interest. I can’t wait to share them all because there is no way they’ll fit in one post!
For now, let’s start with one of my favorite topics – weird & wild stories. Get ready for some ghostly tales, talk of murderous mayhem and soft-hearted bandits, and tales with a bit/lot of heartbreak.
Who’s Knocking On MY door? + An Unexpected Guest
The legend of the Fish family tragedy begins in 1843 when William Fish lost both his wife, Sarah, and his young daughter to the dreaded disease of typhoid. In his grief, he ordered the building of a mausoleum that eventually housed his coffin as well. And that was going to be much sooner than expected because the local legend is that Fish brought his rocking chair to mausoleum, locked himself inside, took a seat and then ended his life with a shotgun.
Of course, with stories like these there’s often a modern-day ghost story attached. Word is that if you knock three times and ask Mr. Fish what he’s doing then you might get an answer.
But the stories of the Fish family don’t end with those tales! In the late 2000’s there were numerous repairs made to the interior and exterior of the tomb. A large number of bones were found and to properly re-inter them they were analyzed to determine age and gender. It was thought that six people were buried inside and the tests showed that was correct but with a twist. Five setsof the remains were matched to family but there was one outlier. Who was this unknown middle-aged man who was buried alongside them? Still a mystery.
Maybe someone should knock three times and ask Mr. Fish if he knows the answer?
Acting Like His Life Depends On It
William A. Choice was one of Atlanta’s finest amateur actors of the 1850s. He also drank heavily and then suffered a blow to the head from a carriage fall, which seemed to make his anger issues even angrier. In December of 1858 he drunkenly approached an acquaintance who he had argued with previously and shot him dead on the spot with no notice.
Over the next two years William used every ounce of his acting ability to prove to the courts that the murder was due to ‘insanity’ due to drinking and the like, and to spare his life. It worked and William was sent to the State Hospital instead, and there he spent out the remainder of his days.
He definitely didn’t land softly there because the hospital was known for a lot of issues including overcrowding and abuse. In fact, that’s the topic of the next section…
The State Hospital’s Early Graves
I wrote about the the abandoned Central State Hospital & Cedar Lane Cemetery in a previous post that you can find here. Jest of it is that Central State Mental Hospital, previously called the Georgia State Sanitarium or Milledgeville State Hospital, along with other names that I prefer not to revisit, first opened its door in 1842. Eventually the hospital took over 2000 acres and had over 200 buildings scattered on the property, and was at one time the largest mental hospital in the world. That was around 1966 or so.
In contrast to the grandeur of many buildings, the hospital grounds were the site of horrific tragedies – forced sterilization, federal investigations of cruelty, overcrowding with 12,000 patients to less than 100 staff, mysterious deaths and the list goes on. One did NOT want to get sent to Milledgeville which was a common threat for many children of older generations, my own included, who acted up.
This site at Memory Hill is one of the original burial grounds for the hospital before some of the known bodies from here and other locations were moved to Cedar Lane Cemetery. It’s estimated that there were over 25,000 known burials (but the number is most likely much more than that) on the hospital property but most of them are lost to time.
The Nicest Train Robber You’LL Ever Meet
Meet Bill Miner. He had numerous nicknames alluding to his looks and the way he went about his work…train and stagecoach robbing. Some of them include – The Grey Fox, The Gentleman Bandit, The Polite Robber.
While he encouraged the use of guns and shooting them, he demanded that his fellow fugitives refrain from actually pointing weapons at people. He was known to tip his hat to ladies, not rough up the gentlemen and to keep his cussin’ to a minimum. What a gentleman!
The phrase ‘hands up’ is attributed to him as well. It seems like every western in the 1950’s used that, doesn’t it?
Bill was known not only for his robbing ways and kind mannerisms but also for his ability to escape a good number of the prisons he was sentenced to serve time at/in. His captures numbered more than a dozen, his escapes about 1/2 that and his near misses seemed to have almost a lorish quality in regards to overall number. He sure did like robbing it seems.
Alas, there was one thing that Bill couldn’t escape from and that is, of course, death. After escaping federal prison in Milledgeville, Bill drank brackish water while hiding in a swamp and died from a stomach ailment upon his recapture.
To add more to this story, turns out the original headstone was in the wrong location (about 15 feet away), his name spelled incorrectly (Minor), and with the wrong year of his death (1911). Does that mean that Bill could’ve faked his death and escaped one last time? Maybe? Probably not, but it makes for one heck of an ending.
But Bill lives on through a number of books, a plethora of songs and ballads, a movie (The Grey Fox, where he was portrayed by Richard Farnsworth although the original pick was Harry Dean Stanton *BE STILL MY HEART I LOVE BOTH THESE MEN*), honorary liquors and beers, and a bar/pub named after him. The latter opened in the old penitentiary in New Westminster where Bill served time but nowadays has been repurposed into an event space. There’s even a story about his lost buried loot that still has fortune hunters on the lookout for stashed gold in the hills of B.C.
A personal story tied in with Bill Miner is that of photographer Mary Spencer. I recommend reading up on her since she features heavily in the movie version of Bill’s life.
Memory Hill Cemetery
Liberty and Franklin Streets
Milledgeville, GA 31061
