Founders Cemetery

Founders Cemetery is where the Roswell Ghost Tour ends, and tour guides say significant paranormal activity has been recorded in and around it: visitors report orbs and mists drifting among the stones after dark, and tour groups have had trouble with their cameras and phones. Much of the lore comes from the streets around it, because the burial ground is said to extend beneath nearby houses and roads, and homeowners digging for renovations are said to turn up skeletons. Founders Cemetery served as Roswell's burying ground from 1840 to 1860 and holds the graves of the town's founder Roswell King, Major James Stephens Bulloch (grandfather of Theodore Roosevelt), and John Dunwody, builder of Mimosa Hall. An 1841 scarlet fever outbreak killed many of the village's children, including Bulloch's infant son and three-year-old Ralph King Hand. Alongside the 28 marked headstones are dozens of unmarked fieldstone graves, believed to hold enslaved people and household servants who worked for Roswell's founding families, their names lost to the historical record.