Nashville City Cemetery

Nashville bought this ground on March 9, 1820, and opened it to burials on January 1, 1822. It is the city’s oldest public cemetery still in use, and Metro Parks keeps it.

Roughly 20,000 people are buried here, and about 6,000 of the graves are African American. 4 of Nashville’s founders lie here, James and Charlotte Robertson among them, along with 15 of its mayors.

William Driver, who named the flag “Old Glory,” is buried here, as is Ella Sheppard of the first Fisk Jubilee Singers. Charles Dickinson, killed by Andrew Jackson in an 1806 duel, is here too.

Tour guides tell the story of Ann Rawlins Sanders, whose grave is marked by a boulder known locally as “Suicide Rock.” The account says she drowned in the Cumberland River in the 1830s.

Visitors report a figure near that grave, and the account holds that a lantern was hung over it because Sanders feared the dark. Some say it still glows.

Metro Archives took that legend apart in 2022. Archivists found the lantern hardware dates to the early 1900s, not the 1830s, and that the boulder story grew with the retelling.

The grounds are open dawn to dusk, and the cemetery association leads free themed tours the second Saturday of each month. It is an active burial ground, so keep to the paths.