Qualla: Elmwood Cemetery (Memphis, Tennessee)

Elmwood Cemetery (Memphis, Tennessee): Introduction

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit WillyBearden, CC BY-SA 4.0. They drew the name from a hat. In August 1852, fifty prominent Memphis citizens each contributed $500 to purchase land for a new cemetery, envisioning a park for the living as well as the dead. Several proposed names went into a hat, and "Elmwood" emerged -- to general satisfaction, followed by mild embarrassment. There were no elm trees in Memphis. The founders hurriedly ordered some from New York to plant among the native oaks. That improvised beginning set the tone for a cemetery that would spend the next 170 years accumulating the whole sprawling story of Memphis: its wars, its epidemics, its music, its politics, and its persistent refusal to fit neatly into anyone's expectations.

Image: WillyBearden | CC BY-SA 4.0

Elmwood Cemetery (Memphis, Tennessee): A Park for the Living and the Dead

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit KENPEI, CC BY-SA 3.0. Elmwood was established as part of the Rural Cemetery Movement that swept American cities in the mid-nineteenth century, a reaction against overcrowded urban churchyards. The idea was revolutionary: a garden cemetery with sweeping vistas, shady knolls, ancient trees, and elaborat...

Image: KENPEI | CC BY-SA 3.0

Elmwood Cemetery (Memphis, Tennessee): Soldiers Rest

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Thomas R Machnitzki, CC BY-SA 3.0. About 1,000 Confederate soldiers and veterans lie in Confederate Soldiers Rest in the cemetery's Fowler Section. The first burial there was William Thomas Gallagher on June 17, 1861, and the last was John Frank Gunter on April 1, 1940 -- a span that bridges the war itself and the...

Image: Thomas R Machnitzki | CC BY-SA 3.0

Elmwood Cemetery (Memphis, Tennessee): The Fever Dead

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Thomas R Machnitzki, CC BY-SA 3.0. Memphis was ravaged by multiple yellow fever epidemics in the 1870s, but the catastrophe of 1878 nearly destroyed the city entirely. Over 5,000 people died in Memphis alone, with 20,000 fatalities along the Mississippi River Valley. The city's population plummeted from 47,000 to ...

Image: Thomas R Machnitzki | CC BY-SA 3.0

Elmwood Cemetery (Memphis, Tennessee): Stories Under the Canopy

Fri, 06 Feb 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit H. Michael Miley, CC BY-SA 2.0. The range of lives represented at Elmwood defies easy summary. Robert Reed Church, born into slavery, became the first African American millionaire in the South. E.H. Crump, the political boss who dominated Memphis for decades, lies nearby. Mae Glover, known as "The Mother of Bea...

Image: H. Michael Miley | CC BY-SA 2.0