Simri Rose’s living legacy: The man behind Rose Hill Cemetery

Opened in 1840, Rose Hill Cemetery is a microcosm of Macon’s history.

Buried among its 60 acres are approximately 16,000 people, and every headstone tells a story of someone who is part of Macon’s past. 

Many people think that Rose Hill Cemetery is named for the flower, but it’s actually named for Simri Rose, who designed the cemetery. Tasked by Macon’s city council with laying out the new cemetery in 1836, Rose chose land outside the city limits. 

The first of its kind in the American South, Rose Hill is known as a rural garden cemetery. These cemeteries are intentionally designed to look like a park with winding paths, beautiful statuary and ornamental plantings. Garden cemeteries fulfill a dual purpose of providing both a tranquil place to mourn and a picturesque retreat.

The story of Simri Rose starts in 1798. Born in Connecticut, his father selected his name by opening the Bible at random and choosing the first name he found, which happened to be Zimri. Zimri later changed it to Simri because he said, “I prefer signing my name S. Rose to Z. Rose,” according to the Georgia USGenWeb Archives.  

Moving to Georgia in 1818, Rose settled near Fort Hawkins and established a name for himself by publishing a manuscript paper called The Bulldog. When Macon was founded in 1823, he established The Georgia Messenger, a forerunner of The Telegraph.  

A publisher by occupation, Rose was also a renowned hobby horticulturist, and his home on Beall’s Hill had gardens crowded with flowers and ornamental shrubs. When the city was laid out, he ensured that many parks and trees were included in the master plan. 

Rose was known to have gone into the swamps south of Macon to bring back a particular species of tree to plant downtown — if he thought its presence would add to Macon’s beauty. 

Rose Hill Cemetery is Simri Rose’s greatest monument and one of Macon’s greatest treasures. In appreciation for his design and work, Macon’s city council gifted him with a plot of his choosing. He chose to be buried in the Magnolia Ridge neighborhood on a bluff overlooking the Ocmulgee River. 

A week after his death, The Telegraph wrote, “Mr. Rose was one of the old landmarks of Macon … he has been identified with almost every public interest of the city since it first took shape.” Tributes to Mr. Rose poured in from throughout the state.  

Earlier this year, Liz Riley and I started a visual inventory of all those buried in Rose Hill, comparing the written internment records with the headstones. Our goal is a free, complete and accurate database of all buried there.

It will provide not only biographical data about those interred but a map to use to locate them when visiting the cemetery. As we inventory those buried, we come across fascinating stories, and we will use this column to tell them.

For more information about how you can contribute to this project, email Kathleen and Liz at raisingthedeadga@gmail.com