Prosperity Cemetery

National Register Listing

Street Address:

McNeary St., Prosperity, SC (Newberry County)

Alternate Name:

Prosperity Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church Cemetery

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NRHP Nomination

Record Number:

S10817736035

Description and Narrative:

The Prosperity Cemetery is significant as an excellent example of nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century gravestone art in a small town or rural cemetery of the South Carolina piedmont. Prosperity Cemetery contains a concentration of markers “signed” by local merchants, marble yard owners, and stonecutters. The cemetery is approximately three acres and contains roughly 1,065 graves, with the first burials occurring in 1802 and the most recent occurring in early 2013. A large variety of intact nineteenth century and early-twentieth century funerary art is present on the site, along with two cornerstones of the Prosperity Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church that was constructed on the site in the early nineteenth century. The gravestones are largely either marble or granite and range from simple tympanum tablet markers to obelisks to large monuments with monumental sculpture. Funerary art includes the weeping willow (immortality), the Easter lily (resurrection), roses (love) either in bud form or broken, oak tree leaves (faith, endurance, strength), dove (peace), cross and crown (passion and sovereignty of the Lord), and the hand (God reaching down from Heaven). Listed in the National Register January 15, 2014.

Period of Significance:

circa 1802 – 1929;1802;1843;1889

Level of Significance:

Local

Area of Significance:

Art

National Register Determination:

listed

Date of Certification:

January 15 2014

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