| South Carolina Department of Archives and History |
| National Register Properties in South Carolina Upper Long Cane Cemetery, Abbeville County (Greenville St. at junction with Beltline Rd., Abbeville vicinity) |
Upper Long Cane Cemetery, established ca. 1760, is significant as the first cemetery in the vicinity of Abbeville, for its association with the settlement, early growth, and development of Abbeville and Abbeville District, and for its association with prominent area families and individuals of the late eighteenth century through the first half of the twentieth century, including numerous persons important to the city, county, state, and nation. Few cemeteries in South Carolina can rival Upper Long Cane Cemetery for its association with, and ability to convey, the history of a town, its county, its region, for such a long period. Upper Long Cane Cemetery is also significant for its concentration of outstanding gravestone art by master Charleston, South Carolina stonecarvers, skilled artisans who were part of a three-generation lineage of outstanding sculptors in nineteenth century South Carolina belonging to the Walker and White families. There are more than fifty gravemarkers “signed” with the stonecutters’ names on them or attributable by style to particular carvers and their shops, most notably those carved by stonecutters Rowe and White, John White, William T. White, Robert D. White, and Edwin R. White. The cemetery contains more than 2,500 marked graves, many of them in family plots or sections, and an unknown number of unmarked graves, on approximately twenty-five acres. Most grave markers, carved from marble, granite, sandstone, or slate, are headstones (some with footstones), although there are also numerous obelisks, pedestal-tombs topped with urns or crosses, box tombs, table-top tombs, tablets, and other markers of varying materials and shapes. Funerary art ranges from simple engraved tombs, tablets, ledgers, and monoliths to more ornate draped tablets, obelisks, columns, or shafts, with ornaments including such motifs as angels, doves or lambs, open Bibles, weeping willows or palmettos, and flowers, wreaths, and ivy. Listed in the National Register December 17, 2010.
View the complete text of the nomination form for this National Register property.
Most National Register properties are privately owned and are not open to the public. The privacy of owners should be respected. Not all properties retain the same integrity as when originally documented and listed in the National Register due to changes and modifications over time.
Images and texts on these pages are intended for research or educational use. Please read our statement on use and reproduction for further information on how to obtain a photocopy or how to cite an item.
Images provided by the South Carolina Department of Archives and History.
