Savannah's Bonaventure Cemetery

Bonaventure Cemetery is one of my favorites of all of the Savannah sites. It may seem marose but in all actuality historical cemeteries are full of some of the most beautiful art, not to mention beautiful stories. Bonventure Cemetery is on what was once a plantation, owned by one John Mullryne. In the mid-1800's Bonaventure was sold to Peter Wiltberger whose sone, Major William H. Wiltberger, later took the plantation and turned it into the Evergreen Cemetery Company. Then, finally in 1907, the City of Savannah bought the cemetery and the name was changed to Bonaventure Cemetery.

Bonaventure was quite the hidden treasure until John Berendt wrote the book Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. A seemingly harmless book brought fan after fan to the Bonaventure Cemetery to view the sculpture which is now known as Bird Girl. I say "seemingly harmless" because the Bird Girl was donated to the Telfair Museum of Art at an attempt to minimize the damage done by trampling tourists. The Bird Girl is the beautifully simple sculpture that graces the front of Berendt's book and, now, graces the DVD covers of Clint Eastwood's interpretation of Berendt's book.

I have to be completely honest. It is my belief that the only reason Bird Girl is so popular is due to Midnight. It is not a spectacular sculpture in comparison to the other treasures of Bonaventure. I will say, however, that I do appreciate it and would photograph it if it were in the setting of the Bonaventure Cemetery. The pictures that you see here are but a few of my favorite treasures of Bonaventure.