Savannah morning news. [volume] (Savannah) 1868-1887, 1881-07-15

By an act of the General Assembly of
Georgia, passed on the 23d of December,
1889, (about five months after the ordinance
OF the Board of Wardens of the same year,)
Christ Church WAS Incorporated, that is,
certain persons named in the act, and their
successors In office, "by the name and style
Of the Church Wardens and Vestrymen OF
the Episcopal Church in Savannah, called
Christ Church." (Marbury and Crawford's
Digest, 144,) and the act declares that
they, the said Wardens aud Vestrymen,
'shall be invested with all manner of prop
erty, both real and personal, all moneys due,
donations, gifts, grants, hereditaments,
privileges and immunities whatever, which
may belong to the said church. All moneys
that have been granted for rebuilding the
said church, or for building a new
church, or which may hereafter be given,
granted, conveyed or transferred for re-
building the said church or for building a
new church In Savannah; or which may
be made or transferred to them, or their
successors In office: To have and to hold
the same for the proper use, benefit and be-
half OF the said church; and the said church
Wardens and Vestrymen and their success
sors In office shall be, and they are hereby de-
elared, to be capable of SUNG and being
sued, and OF using all necessary legal steps
for recovering and defending any property
whatsoever while the said church may hold,
claim or demand, and is therein secured or
otherwise" etc., etc.
In this act, which is the only one 1 fiud
on the subject of church property in Christ
Church, no direct reference is made to the
cemetery. and We are then thrown back
upon the Provincial acts already cited, and
the ordinance Of 1889 and subsequent ordi
nances.
The act of 1858 created parish "by the
name or the parish of Christ Church" and
declared that "the church already erected
In the town of Savannah, and the ground as
now used for a cemetery or burial place
thereto, shall be the parish church aud
cemetery OF Christ Church" By the third
section of that act Episcopacy was made
the established religion of the province, and
one OF the purposes for which that act was
passed, as its title declares, was "fOr EN-.
powering the Church Wsrdens and Vestry-
men OF the respective parishes to assess rates
Tor the repair of churches. the relief of the
poor and other parochial services" And it
is worthy OF remark that the next act In
order (of 1863 further authorizes the
assessing OF rates "for enlarging the pub
lie burial ground at Savannah, and
enclosing the same" Although, in our
compilations, the several enactments con-
ferriDg these powers are omitted as repug-
nant to our form of government which sue
eeeded the Revolution, yet 1t is believed
that no class of British subjects were ex-
empt from such assessment. DIssenters as
well as members of the established church
contributed to those objects, and were all
entitled to interment in the parish GENE
terry, unless laboring at their death under
some special ecclesiastical disability.
The act of 1903, both in its title and BODY,
speaks of the cemetery at Savannah as ''the
cemetery or public burial ground" and l
am forced to the conviction that neither the
Provincial or State Legislature regard It as
place for the interment exclusively of any
denomination of Christians. That It was
originally a part of the commons apper-
tanning to the said town, and that, as such,i
was (under the act of 1760-Mar. and Craw.
Dig. 117) to be and continue the common
property OF the lot holders In the said town."
and that it could ''not be claimed or granted
away for any purpose whatsoever, than by
act of the General Assembly," that the
General Assembly did by the subsf quent
acts already cited, dedicate 21O by $50 feet
OF said common to the purpose of common
sepulture, with an addition afterwards by
the Board OF WardeBs OF an area sufficient
to make square of 500 feet.
1t NAV be said that the ordinance OF Doth
July, 1898, already referred to, recognized
the title of Christ Church to the said area of
210 feet by $50 feet, and thereby removed
any doubt as to the legislative or municipal
intent. l. think the answer is plain and
obvious:
l. That the supposed recognition is too
equivocal to be interpreted as an admission
OF an exclusive right even for burial pur-
poses.
2. That il it is to operate as an admission
of the exclusive right of Christ Church for
purposes Of iDterment, such admission goes
no further, and cannot have the effect #
turning an easement into grant of the soil
and with the easement the Mayor and Alder
men do not propose to interfere as against
any person whose dead have been buried
there.
3. That the admission If 1t operates at all;
is to be considered with reference to the
time when the ordinance was passed, soon
after the period OF our revolutionary strug-
gle, when the people OF Georgia, sccustom-
ed previously to mild but regal government,
had hardly ceased to remember the estab-
ltshed church as the only one supported
under the laws of the province: and when 10
Is probable that most of the dead who re-
posed within the limits of the old portion
of the cemetery belonged to Episcopal
families, or had been buried according to
the rites of the Church OF England; and
when, also, as the ordinance itself shows,
there could have been little room for fur
Their interments within such old portion.
4. That no ordinance of the Board of
Wardens, In whatever terms couched, could
alien or convey title to the soil; the fee to
which was not In them, at least for the pur-
pose of alienation.
would not be understood as saying that
the parish church was not capable, even
without special act of Incorporation, of
taking grant of lands for parochial pur-
poses; nor do | mean to say that the
change in the form OF government
would have diverted the title to lands so
granted; but put my opinion ON the dis
tinct ground that no such grant in the soil
of the cemetery was ever made, and that
although In one sense the division of the
parish into provinces was an ecclesiastical
division, yet, as the provincial acts gave no
distinct or exclusive right in the soil to the
parish church, the char ge In government
took away all pretence for suppOsiDg that a
cemetery which had before been dedicated
to the burial Of persons of all Christian de-
nominations, was not by the act of the
revolution itself opened as place OF sepul-
ture for all persons entitled to- burial under
any rite or form.
The fore going views render 1t unnecessary
to examine particularly the various ordi-
nances (since that of 1880 recognizing the
Old Cemetery as public burial place, regu
lating the appointment of a sexton, the
digging graves, etc. II, as think, the fee
In the soil could be granted only by legisla-
tive action Ter, during the Provincial Gov
ernments, by the authority of the CROWN
and no such grant can be shown, no action
of the wardens and of the Mayor and AL
men could amount to more than dedica-
ton OF the land for purposes of sepulture.
AS this is subject OF importance, and no
immediate action is contemplate bv any
party, take the liberty of suggesting to
Council the passage of a resolution which,
while it is an act of simple justice to the
memorialists, will leave the subject open
for future action whenever the proper time
shall arrive.