Aerial survey · USDA NAIP · public domainMilledgeville's oldest active cemetery holds governors, a cursed illusionist's grave, and the novelist who called it home.
Memory Hill Dr, Milledgeville, GA 31061
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free to visit; self-guided ghost tour map available from the Convention & Visitors Bureau
Access
Wheelchair OK
Mostly flat grounds with paved and gravel paths; some uneven terrain near older sections
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1810 · Antebellum Georgia capital burial ground · Flannery O'Connor burial site · Dixie Haygood grave and curse legend · Governors and legislators interred
Memory Hill Cemetery was established in the early nineteenth century in Milledgeville, which served as Georgia's state capital from 1807 to 1868. The grounds preserve a cross-section of that era's political and cultural life: multiple Georgia governors are buried here, along with state legislators who shaped the antebellum South.
Among the most visited graves is that of Flannery O'Connor (1925–1964), the Georgia-born author whose fiction—sharp, darkly comic, and deeply Catholic—earned her a permanent place in American literature. O'Connor spent much of her life in Milledgeville and is buried in the family plot near her mother.
Another prominent interment is Dixie Haygood (1861–1915), who performed internationally as 'Annie Abbott, the Georgia Wonder' and 'Little Miss Georgia Magnet.' At roughly 100 pounds, she confounded audiences by resisting being lifted by multiple strong men and seemingly telekinetically moving heavy objects. Scientists and skeptics subjected her to tests across the United States and Europe; she was never definitively exposed. Local legend holds that before her death, Haygood placed a curse on her grave plot in West Section F, Plot 40.
Sources
The central legend of Memory Hill involves Dixie Haygood, the stage illusionist buried in West Section F, Plot 40. The local account holds that Haygood, already connected to rumors of witchcraft and psychic ability during her lifetime, placed a curse on her grave before her 1915 death. Visitors are warned that standing between her headstone and the sun invites that curse.
More concretely strange is the physical phenomenon reported each year: around Christmastime, a hole opens in the ground near Haygood's plot and the nearby grave of John Yates. Despite being filled in repeatedly—and at least once sealed with cement—the hole returns. Whether it is a settling of coffin vaults, a trick of soil composition, or something else, the recurrence has been documented consistently enough to become part of the official Milledgeville ghost tour.
The cemetery also marks the endpoint of the Williams family banshee's route from The Homestead on Liberty Street: witnesses described the gray-clad figure walking south, passing the Baptist church, and disappearing as it entered the cemetery grounds.
Notable Entities
Walk the grounds at your own pace using the official Milledgeville ghost tour map, which identifies the grave of illusionist Dixie Haygood (Section F, Plot 40), Flannery O'Connor's burial site, and other notable interments among the early-1800s markers.
The Convention & Visitors Bureau produces a self-guided ghost tour that includes Memory Hill as its central stop, covering the Dixie Haygood curse legend and the route the Williams family banshee reportedly walked from Liberty Street into the cemetery.
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