Harmony Graveyard

Harmony Graveyard. Shelby County. This site began as the burying ground for Harmony Presbyterian Church, the first church built in the area that would become Helena. The earliest marked grave is Jones Griffin (died 1836), one of Andrew Jackson's Tennessee volunteers who was credited as the first soldier to mount the breastworks at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend. The cemetery contains the graves of Helena's earliest physicians, ministers, educators, and public officials including C. I. Hinds, the city's first mayor. Early family names found here include Davidson, Lee, Dunnam, Roy, Ruffin, Lambert, Lovelady, Wyatt, Squire, and Tucker. Notable graves include C. T. Davidson, who built Buck Creek dam and opened Helena's first telephone exchange and electrical power plant, and Joseph Squire, an engineer from England who first surveyed Helena into lots and streets in 1873 and who authored the 1890 Cahaba Coal Field study. Among the most poignant burials are Ora Hanbury and her children Guy and Ione, and Sarah J. Glendale who were killed in the Cahaba River train wreck on December 27, 1896. Victims of the 1926 Mossboro coal mine explosion and the devastating May 1933 tornado are also buried here. , Listed on the Alabama Historic Cemetery Register in 2010.