Woolfolk family burial plot in Rose Hill Cemetery vandalized

A burial plot in Macon’s Rose Hill Cemetery that contains the remains of nine people murdered more than 100 years ago was recently damaged by vandals.

Several stone gravemarkers were discovered ripped out of the ground and tossed aside, including a 100-pound headstone that had been buried a foot into the ground.

“It looked like a car ran over it,” Joey Fernandez, president of Rose Hill Preservation & Restoration, Inc. said. “There’s no way to get in there with a car, so somebody did this with their hands.”

Fernandez posted videos and photos of individuals captured on security cameras who entered the cemetery in the wee hours of the morning July 7. 

The preservation group is offering a $1,000 reward for information that leads to the identification of the individuals, who Fernandez said may or may not have been involved in the vandalism. The organization intends to file a police report with the Bibb County Sheriff’s Office.

Woolfolk murders

The site is the resting place of Richard F. Woolfolk, his wife Mattie Howard, their six children and Howard’s aunt, Temperance West.

These nine members of the Woolfolk family were murdered with an ax in the family’s farmhouse in western Bibb County in 1887.

“I was horrified,” said Richard Woolfolk’s great great great grandson, Mo Cowan, upon hearing about the gravesite vandalism. “I just couldn’t believe someone would go to the cemetery in the middle of the night and just destroy it.”

Just 18 months ago, Cowan, a member of the preservation group, visited the Woolfolk plot to trim and rake the land and scrub the headstones.

The culprit of the infamous Woolfolk family murder — 27-year-old Thomas G. Woolfolk — was Richard Woolfolk’s son from his first marriage to Susan Moore, who died when Thomas was an infant. Thomas Woolfolk was convicted and hanged in October of 1890 in Perry.

The gruesome case generated coverage from newspapers across the country at the time and led to the public’s heightened interest in the Woolfolk family, whose story is told and retold in books, essays and blog posts. 

“I think people have a morbid curiosity about it, because it was the largest mass murder to occur in Bibb County history,” Cowan said.

He recalled finding out for the first time from his grandmother that he had a familial connection to the Woolfolks, after The Macon Telegraph published an article on the murders in 1987, on the 100th anniversary of the killings.’

‘Ruining the experience’

Rose Hill Cemetery, spread over acres of rolling hills along Riverside Drive that slope down to railroad tracks and then the Ocmulgee, is home to thousands of monuments. Some, like those that honor the late members of the Allman Brothers Band, are legendary. Others are unknown today. But all represent a loss and a family that wanted to remember their loved one.

The cemetery is open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m., and it’s illegal to be in the cemetery outside of those hours. Fernandez said the thoughtless, damaging actions of some folks ruin the experience for everyone.

“It’s against the law. We’ve had wax candle burnings that have stained monuments forever,” he said. “We’ve captured folks doing TikTok videos out there, and that always brings more people in. There are monuments riddled with people’s signatures.”

The preservation group has installed cameras throughout the cemetery. To donate to the organization, visit rosehillcemetery.org.