Cemetery

Cemetery Operations

Six employees maintain the city's 54-acre cemetery. They set up tents for graveside services, dig graves for burials and mow the expansive cemetery grounds. The cemetery is staffed six days a week and is accessible to the public seven days a week until dark. The older section of the cemetery is included in the National Register of Historic Places. 

The Decatur Cemetery is a peaceful and beautiful place to walk. Many people enjoy walking their dogs through the cemetery. We ask all visitors to keep their dogs on leashes and stay on the roadway. As an added convenience, the cemetery staff provides baggies for disposal of pet waste. Thank you for helping to keep Decatur Cemetery a pleasant place for all to visit. 

Friends of Decatur Cemetery is a volunteer group that works closely with the city to preserve and maintain the cemetery as a historic, cultural and greenspace resource.

Cemetery Walking Tour Brochures Available

The walking tour brochure provides an overview of 40 of the most interesting sites at Decatur Cemetery. Among them are the resting places of three veterans of the American Revolution, a monument standing over a field where numerous orphans are buried, and the final resting place of Dr. Thomas Holley Chivers, who abandoned his medical training for poetry and was described by Edgar Allen Poe as “one of the best and one of the worst poets in America.” 

The brochure, in describing the 40 sites, provides a glimpse of Decatur’s history. The 58-acre cemetery dates to 1823 (it’s a full decade older than Atlanta) and provides an interesting overview of how the nation’s attitude about cemetery design (and death) has changed over the years. 

The brochure includes a map of the cemetery, lots of color photographs, and a short collection of “cemetery manners” to ensure that the dignity of the site is not compromised. Pick up a copy at the cemetery office or at City Hall.