Sextons & Years of Service

1822 – 1846 Alpha Kingsley
1847 – 1848 Smith Criddle
1849 – 1854 Benjamin Clements
1855 – 1862 Martin O. Cotton
1862 – T. M. McBride
1862 – 1865 George W. Norvell
1868 – James W. Pratt
1874 – 1879 Daniel M. Martin
1880 – 1888 William T. Perry
1889 – 1911 Daniel M. Martin
1912 – 1917 John B. Norman
1918 – 1937 Charles H. Wallace
1937 – 1944 Delbert C. Puckett
1948 – 1955 Robert I. Taylor
1956 – 1974 Douglas A. Pardue
1977 – 1978 Wesley Paine, Metro Board of Parks
1979 – 1982 Naomi Levia, Metro Board of Parks
1982 – present Metro Historical Commission

List of Sextons prepared by Carole Bucy. 2000

Sexton. The job of the Sexton at the City Cemetery was difficult. He was in charge of arrangements for all burials, in having the graves dug prior to funerals and filled after interments, in keeping the Interment Books and in collecting the fees for burials. During periods of Epidemics this was unending work. We must be grateful to the endeavors of the Sextons in faithfully keeping the Interment Books at the City Cemetery so that we have knowledge of the many people who were buried in this cemetery. Today of the 19,745 burials in the Interment Books, only a fraction have tombstones. Of the 3,000 tombstones in the cemetery, in 2006, only 2000 tombstones had legible inscriptions.

Local Undertakers and Funeral Homes

• Bracey – Welch
• Cole & Garrett
• Combs, M. S. & Co.
• Cosmopolitan
• Cornelius, C. R.
• Eastland
• Finley – Dorris
• Grooms, R. H.
• Grooms & Combs
• Martin
• Marshall
• McCombs
• Peters & Pisen
• Pettus-Owens
• Roach, John C. & Co.
• W. R. C. & Co. (W.R. Cornelius & Co.) 

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