The oldest cemetery in Athens, established c. 1810 on what is now the University of Georgia's North Campus, with reported sightings of the apparition of Dicy Ann Roberts, a teenager buried there in the 1850s.
230 S. Jackson Street, Athens, GA 30602
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Free public access during daytime hours.
Access
Limited Access
Uneven historic ground with stone steps, slopes, and 19th-century headstones.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1810 · Oldest Cemetery in Athens · Original Athens Town Burial Ground 1810 to 1856 · Burial Site of Two UGA Presidents · National Register of Historic Places · Site of 2015 Baldwin Hall Remains Discovery
The Old Athens Cemetery, more formally the Jackson Street Cemetery, lies on the University of Georgia's North Campus, bounded by Jackson Street, Thomas Street, the College of Environment + Design, and Baldwin Hall. Burials began about 1810 and continued as the town's primary cemetery until 1856, when the newer Oconee Hill Cemetery opened. The last documented interment was in 1898.
The cemetery originally comprised roughly six acres and has been reduced to about two and a half acres through more than a century of campus expansion. The land was originally part of the University's 1785 land grant and was eventually deeded back to UGA in 2004. UGA's repeated attempts to reclaim the cemetery land — in 1890, the 1920s and 1930s, and again in 1980 — were resisted by the Athens Historical Society and the Old Athens Cemetery Foundation.
Approximately 800 graves are documented, including merchants, tailors, ministers, faculty children, and two UGA presidents: Robert Finley and Moses Waddel. At least 30 African Americans, many of whom researchers believe were formerly enslaved, were buried in the cemetery; their graves and roughly 70 others were covered over when construction began on Baldwin Hall in 1938. When workers accidentally unearthed human remains during the renovation of Baldwin Hall in 2015, the discovery prompted significant public outrage and demands for accountability and reburial; remains were reinterred at Oconee Hill Cemetery and a memorial was added on North Campus.
The cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2022. UGA Libraries' 'Death and Human History in Athens' digital project documents the cemetery's burials and stewardship history.
Sources
According to the University of Georgia Libraries' ghost-stories research guide and a 2014 Red & Black article on the folklore of Athens's two oldest cemeteries, the most frequently reported figure at the Jackson Street Cemetery is Dicy Ann Roberts. Roberts was buried at the cemetery in the 1850s at age 13; her marker remains. Visitors and student investigators describe seeing 'a very young girl in what looks like old, tiny clothes wandering around in there,' usually in the late afternoon and dusk hours.
The Red & Black, Southern Spirit Guide, and Visit Athens GA tourism office also collect accounts of unexpected temperature drops in specific corners of the cemetery and small orbs of light that appear in photographs taken at the site. UGA's own 'Athens Ghostlore' academic study, deposited at Academia.edu, treats these accounts as part of the campus folklore tradition rather than as paranormal evidence.
The cemetery's 2015 Baldwin Hall remains discovery and the painful history of unmarked African American burials add a layer of historical weight to the site that the lore does not always acknowledge. Modern visitors who come for the Roberts story often leave with a much larger sense of the cemetery as a place where the long shadow of slavery and erasure is still visible.
Notable Entities
Walk the oldest cemetery in Athens, with approximately 800 graves including merchants, ministers, two UGA presidents (Robert Finley and Moses Waddel), and the grave of Dicy Ann Roberts. Interpretive context is provided by UGA Libraries' digital cemetery project.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Athens, GA
Oconee Hill Cemetery was purchased by the city of Athens in 1855 when burials at the older Jackson Street Cemetery were closed. A self-perpetuating Board of Trustees was created in 1856 to manage the original 17 acres on the west side of the North Oconee River. The cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2013.
Savannah, GA
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Modesto, CA
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