History of the Cemetery
Oswell Eve, a sea captain and planter, set aside two acres of land near his summer home for the purpose of a family cemetery. A native of Philadelphia, Oswell arrived in Augusta around 1800. He purchased land south of the town of Augusta on the Savannah Road (today, Mike Padgett Highway, near Apple Valley Drive). There he built a summer home called The Cottage Place, for his wife, Aphra Ann née Pritchard, and their growing family. The cemetery was not far from the house and adopted the name Cottage Cemetery. The first known burial was Oswell and Ann’s twelfth child, Augusta Belinda Eve, who died as an infant in 1803.
Over the next centuries, the cemetery became the final resting place for not only Oswell and Aphra Ann’s descendants, but those of Joseph and Hannah (Singleterry) Eve, Oswell’s brother, and Christopher and Catherine (Pritchard) FitzSimons, Aphra’s sister. Since 1803, at least 120 men, women and children have been buried in Cottage Cemetery. Many of them had an impact on the growth, development, and social fabric of Augusta during the 19th and 20thcenturies. To learn more about the people buried in Cottage Cemetery, visit The Families section.
The land around the cemetery was divided and sold as the years passed and houses, apartments, businesses, and factories were built. The cemetery, tucked into the woods, fell into disrepair, due to natural, material, and human causes. Trees, shrubs, and other growth took over the cemetery and mortar disintegrated from the brick wall. By 1911, the cemetery had been vandalized at least once, headstones pushed over, smashed, or stolen. In total, it has been vandalized at least three times.
To learn more about the restoration of the cemetery, visit the Restoration page.
Augusta's Historic Cottage Cemetery 