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Giles County Memory, Legacy, and History
Item 6 of 18
Maplewood Cemetery has served Pulaski as a public burying ground since 1855. It expanded in 1878 to include a new African American section and again in 1907 to what is now "New Maplewood Cemetery." The older sections are designed to reflect a park-like atmosphere, which was popular in Victorian-era cemeteries. It holds the graves of many prominent Pulaski citizens.

The second designated public burial place in Pulaski, the oldest section of Maplewood Cemetery opened in 1855 as “New Pulaski Cemetery.”  It is a distinctively Victorian cemetery, characterized by open space, trees, curvilinear roads, and winding pathways amongst ornate headstones. A section to the east of the curving roads contains pauper and possibly African American burials as well as the remains of 85 Confederate soldiers. Adjacent to the Confederate section, but south of the original cemetery boundaries, are the graves of a number of fallen United States Colored Troops. 

In 1878, the city purchased an additional six acres, much of which was designated African American. The white and Black sections of the 1878 addition are distinguished by the lack of roads among the African American burials. The city expanded the city two more times, in 1907 and 1940. The cemetery contains a number of notable burials, including Governor John C. Brown, U.S. Congressmen John Goff Ballentine, Sr., Edward Everett Eslick, and Ross Bass, and Confederate Brigadier General John Adams. Interpretive plaques throughout the cemetery tell of significant interments.