The History of the Pettit Cemetery in Ellijay, GA
Pettit Cemetery Origins
Three weeks before his 21st birthday William Decatur Pettit should have been a young man in his prime. Instead, he lay sick in bed. At his home on the Pettit farm near Ellijay, Georgia was his wife, Elizabeth, and their infant son. Each passing day, the new mother watched nervously as her husband’s condition worsened. It was the winter of 1849 when the ailing father understood that his time on earth was short. As his body failed him, he managed to convey some final instructions to his loved ones. His last request was that he be laid to rest on top of a particular hill near his home. His reason for selecting this site was, as he put it, because “at sundown when the Cartecay valley is in shadows, the top of the hill is still bright.”[1]
There may have been a good reason he had noticed this natural phenomenon. His older brother had scouted this burial site ahead of him. William’s brother Henry Pettit III was born on February 6, 1824, in Rutherford County, North Carolina to Henry Pettit Jr and Anna Mooney. He probably moved with his father and mother to Gilmer County, GA where he married Lavina Pence on August 31, 1846. The following year, on March 22, 1847, Henry Pettit III died and was buried on this hill near the family farm. We do not know what illness or tragedy struck this man but his hand etched gravestone notes that he was 23 years, 1 month, and 6 days old when he met his end.
Nearly two years later, on January 30, 1849, William Decatur Pettit succumbed to tuberculosis and passed away. He left behind his wife and their only child who was three months of age. As requested, his body was interred on the sunny spot on top of the hill. He was placed beside his brother Henry Pettit III.
These burials marked the beginning of what would become the Pettit family cemetery. Over the next several decades these two boys would come to share their sunny resting place with their mother and father, numerous siblings, various cousins and extended family. In 1847 and 1849, the warm sun that illuminated this lonely hilltop must have been a sharp contrast to the bitter cold that had descended on the Pettit family.
William D. Pettit and brother Henry Pettit III hand etched grave markers.
The Impromptu Pettit Family Reunion in Gilmer Co
In the 1990s I passed through Ellijay, Georgia with my family on a trip to Florida. In our haste we did not have time to locate this cemetery. I planned on going back but time slipped away as did all my Georgia contacts. So, in early 2025 I began searching public records for landowners near Ellijay with the surname “Pettit” thinking someone local might have information and directions. My search turned up a name and I sent a Mr. Bobby Pettit a brief letter with a few questions on February 7, 2025. Little did I know that Bobby was also searching for me at nearly the same moment I was seeking him. Bobby later explained that the receipt of my letter was a bit of a shock to him because he had just found my website, The Pettit Research Project, a day before my letter arrived in the mail. Rational minds will tell us this was a mere coincidence… and perhaps it was. But odd circumstantial alignments of this nature seem to occur more frequently than can be explained when it comes to family. Sometimes kin folk just have a funny way of finding each other.
Indeed, one month later, in March of 2025, I notified Bobby that I had unexpected business that just so happened to put me in Atlanta –about an hour and a half from Ellijay. With short notice, I asked if I could come visit with my oldest son. He not only agreed but he made arrangements with several local cousins to meet with us when we arrived.
The day before our meeting we met with another cousin, Margaret Peters, who is a DAR member. Margaret also made the drive up to Ellijay the next day with some additional family in tow. We all converged on Bobby’s house at roughly the same time.
Bobby and his lovely wife Gina graciously hosted all of us in their fine home for what turned out to be an impromptu Pettit reunion. Present that day were my son and I, Margaret Peters, Chris Gallman and Jean Gallman, Marty Pettit, John Clark Pettit, Mark Pettit, Bobby Pettit and Gina Pettit, and Henry Pettit Ewing. Represented in this group were descendants of Henry Pettit Jr’s sons William Decatur Pettit (1828-1849), George W. Pettit (1834-1891), and John Fulton Pettit (1837-1903).
The 2025 Visit to the Cemetery
The day before our visit marked the 85th birthday of Henry Pettit Ewing. Mr. Ewing was named after Henry Pettit Jr (1790-1858) by his mother, Ruth Ora Pettit who married Alvin Belah Ewing. Obviously Henry’s mother was quite enamored with her family’s history. Her love of family and the past is shared by her children and grandchildren today. Henry made the trip with his nieces, Margaret and Jean, as well as Jean’s husband Chris.
After sharing stories and looking over Bobby’s impressive collection of old family deeds and records, we all made the short journey up the hill to the Pettit cemetery.
Below is a photo of Henry Pettit Ewing beside his namesake, Henry Pettit Jr.
Henry Pettit Ewing with his namesake Henry Pettit Jr. who was born in 1790.
William Decatur Pettit did not live to see his son, William Henry Pettit, grow to maturity. But from that small boy sprung a multitude of descendants. Two very notable Gilmer County men from this line are the brothers John Pettit and Mark Allen Pettit. They were captured in the photo below standing with their 2nd great grandfather’s marker.
John Pettit and Mark Pettit with their 2nd great grandfather William Decatur Pettit
Years later William Decatur Pettit was honored with a more permanent marker than the hand-carved stone. The new marker was placed by his great grandson Morris Pettit.
John Fulton Pettit was well represented on this day as well. Four descendants from his clan took a moment to gather next to his large monument which depicts an open Bible on a pulpit. John was a baptist minister.
Descendants of Reverend John Fulton Pettit meet and stand aside his monument.
My son and I located our ancestors, George W. Pettit and his wife Eliza. Their impressive gravestone may have been prepared by their son William Henry Pettit of Harrison, AR who was said to have been in the monument business there.
George W. Pettit and wife Eliza.
Memorial Service 1923
This was not the first time descendants of the Gilmer County Pettit family gathered to pay their respects. Nor was it the first time the visitors came from a long distance. On October 7, 1923, about 300 people gathered for a memorial service in memory of Henry Pettit Jr and his descendants.
This researcher’s 2nd great grandfather Elijah Alexander Pettit and his brother William Henry Pettit[2] traveled from Harrison, AR for the event. The service included a gathering at the Pettit cemetery and preaching at a nearby location where an abundance of good food was served.
An article describing the gathering was published in the Ellijay Courier by local historian and editor T. H. Tabor. In his write-up, Tabor also recounted some Pettit family history and legends as they were told to him. Someone furnished a copy of the article to the Harrison Times in Arkansas and a flattering piece on the local Pettits was written in that newspaper as well.
Click for full article.
Pettit Cemetery Survey in 2002
The cemetery was surveyed on October 14, 2002, by Jim Strickland. Graves are laid out in typical east-west orientation with rows running north-south. The cemetery is uniform in this layout without any graves facing odd directions. This is indicative of a traditional Christian burial site. History tells us these were certainly people of faith.
Mr. Strickland noted that some graves on row 7 were marked with field stones with no inscriptions. This was confirmed on our visit in 2025 as well. The only two named people on this row were Polly Contrell (1866-1889) and Elizabeth Tucker.
A copy of Jim Strickland’s survey in an updated format is available free for download from The Pettit Research Project here:
Pettit Cemetery Survey Updated 2025 Ellijay, Gilmer Co., GA
At the time of the 2002 survey there was speculation that a grave marked only with a field stone next to Margret Elvira Pettit was that of her husband Elijah Pool Pettit. Since that time, it has been determined that Elijah remarried after her death and moved to Arkansas. Sadly, he and his second wife, Julia Page, took pneumonia on their trip from Georgia and died after arriving in Harrison, AR. They are buried there in Rosehill Cemetery in Block 8, Lot 4 Space 7. The identity of the person that occupies the grave next to Margret Pettit in the Pettit cemetery remains a mystery.
There have been no burials in the cemetery since the 2002 survey was conducted. In fact, ground has not been broken there in over 100 years. The last person to be laid to rest in the Pettit cemetery was Lewallen Decatur Strickland who was buried in 1921. He was the husband of Elizabeth Ann Pettit, daughter of Elijah Pool Pettit and his first wife Margret.
Current Conditions (March 2025)
This cemetery is in surprisingly good shape considering its age. Tall pine trees loom overhead looking down on the fragile headstones below. Thankfully, Bobby Pettit, the de facto caretaker, has seen to it that standing dead timber is removed before it can topple a monument. He and his wife reside just down the road from the old cemetery and keep a close eye on things. Their home is situated on the ancestral land that Henry Pettit Jr, the old pioneer, once roamed. Henry was laid to rest in the cemetery in 1858 after losing his life to a particularly bloody bout of pneumonia.[3] Henry’s wife, Anna, was laid beside him in 1871.
Their stone markers were gently cleaned by Bobby Pettit prior to our visit. They glistened brightly in the sun on top of this lonely hill as if glowing in anticipation of the return of long-lost family. We perused the cemetery and each of us noted our connection to our particular ancestors. Then we gathered for a meal in Ellijay where we bowed our heads and grace was said by Mrs. Gallman. In retrospect it seems we unintentionally mirrored the events that had played out with the memorial service 100 years before us.
That evening as the shadows fell on the land around us, we bid adieu to old Henry and Anna Pettit. Their progeny had gathered once more to find them right where they wanted to be found –sleeping peacefully where the light still shines through the shadows of the Cartecay valley.
–B. W. Pettit
April 17, 2025
Footnotes
- William James letter to Opal Parker, Interview of Carrie May Holden James in May 1967, March 7, 1984. This letter records the reminiscing of Carrie May Holden James about the Pettit family. It stated the following: “William D. Pettit died of tuberculosis on January 30, 1849, three weeks before his 21st birthday. He selected the site of the Pettit Family Graveyard on the hilltop near his home because, as he said, at sundown when the Cartecay valley was in shadows, the top of the hill was still bright.” “They only had one child, a son, Henry who was known as ‘Cherry Log Henry Pettit’ to distinguish him from all the other Henry Pettits.” ↑
- This William Henry Pettit (1856-1941) was the son of George W. Pettit and should not be confused with William Henry Pettit (1848-1929) the son of William Decatur Pettit. ↑
- William James letter to Opal Parker, Interview of Carrie May Holden James in May 1967, March 7, 1984: “Uncle Cal (Joshua Calvin Pettit) and Grandpa Pettit (Henry Pettit, Jr,. Calvins’ father) both had pneumonia at the same time. Henry Pettit died of it, and it was bad on Uncle Cal; blood ran out of his nose and ears; left him partly deaf.” ↑