The Double Dead Witch of Old City Cemetery
Old City Cemetery dates back to Florida’s Territorial Period and is indeed the oldest public cemetery in Tallahassee. The most ancient surviving grave is that of Daniel Lyons, who was buried in 1829, the year it was established by the Territorial Legislative Council. The cemetery was located on a 200-foot-wide clearing outside the town’s boundaries, a buffer zone intended to protect the capital from attacks by local Native Americans. Eleven years later, the cemetery was acquired by the city.
Like most graveyards, it was initially segregated, with whites on the east side, and Black people on the west side. Union soldiers were buried on the Black side, regardless of color. The east side of the cemetery looks comparatively empty at first glance, but this is because Black families often marked graves with wooden or cast iron headstones which have not survived. To this day, a six-foot wide pathway still follows the old division between the two sections.
Old City Cemetery is a historical cross-section of Tallahassee society, with free and enslaved Black people, soldiers from the Civil and World Wars, governors, senators, educators, and citizens from all social classes buried in the same 10 acres. The most visited grave, however, belongs to an alleged witch named Elizabeth Budd-Graham.
Nicknamed Bessie, she died of heart failure in 1889, at only 23, leaving behind a husband and two children. In the decades after her death, rumors began to spread that Budd-Graham was a witch who had enchanted her husband, John, into marrying her. While there is no actual evidence that she was involved in witchcraft, a few unusual things about her burial serve as fuel for the fire.
First, Budd-Graham’s headstone is an elaborate obelisk which faces west, contrary to certain Christian traditions. This is not a sign of ill respect, though, as not all Christians are buried facing east. Other graves in the cemetery also face west, and it was not unheard of at the time. However, it is perhaps the epitaph on the ornate French granite headstone that is the most striking.
The words are a passage from Edgar Allan Poe’s Lenore, an ode to one’s dearly departed:
“Ah! Broken is the Golden Bowl.
The spirit flown forever!
Let the bell toll!
A saintly soul
Floats on the Stygian River;
Come let the burial rite be read
The funeral song be sung;
An anthem for the queenliest dead
That died so young
A dirge for her the doubly dead
In that she died so young.”
Believers claim that the poem alludes to Graham’s witchcraft several times. Lines such as “the spirit flown forever” and “floats on the Stygian River” allegedly denote her inability to cross the River Styx into the afterlife and being stuck in between worlds, while “A dirge for the doubly dead” supposedly refers to the fact that witches must be killed twice.
Budd-Graham is generally considered to have been a benevolent witch, who cast love and protection spells. Despite the dubious folklore surrounding her, visitors to her grave frequently leave offerings for the White Witch of Old City Cemetery.
