Bonaventure Cemetery is located on the site of a plantation originally owned by John Mullryne. In 1846 the 600-acre Bonaventure Plantation and its private cemetery were sold to the Wiltberger family. In 1867 John Muir began his Thousand Mile Walk to Florida and the Gulf. In October he sojourned for six days and nights in the Bonaventure cemetery, sleeping upon graves overnight, this being the safest and cheapest accommodation that he could find while he waited for money to be expressed from home. He found the cemetery even then breathtakingly beautiful and inspiring and wrote a lengthy chapter upon it, "Camping in the Tombs." In 1907 the cemetery was purchased by the City of Savannah, making the cemetery public and changing the name to Bonaventure Cemetery.It is now the largest of the city's municipal cemeteries, containing nearly 160 acres.
The peaceful setting rests on a scenic bluff of the Wilmington River, east of Savannah. This charming site has been a world famous tourist destination for more than 150 years due to the old tree-lined roadways, the many notable persons interred, the unique cemetery sculpture and architecture, and the folklore associated with the site and the people.
