As we celebrate Women’s History Month, we reflect on the powerful contributions women have made throughout history—both in our community and beyond. Here at Linwood Cemetery, we are fortunate to be the final resting place of several remarkable women whose lives left a lasting legacy. Their stories are woven into the fabric of Columbus’ history, and today, we honor their enduring impact.

This beautiful love story ended tragically when Peyton was killed in the Battle of Chickamauga in 1863.  Julia returned to Columbus to live with her parents. Then after the war, after her father had died, she and her mother took off for Paris, where the beautiful Julia was involved in a romance with the great nephew of Napoleon I.  He doted on her and gave her fabulous gifts of jewelry. However, something went awry, and Julia and her mother came home. 

One of Columbus’s favorite love stories is that of Julia Flournoy Hurt and Peyton Holt Colquitt, a handsome young couple from the Civil War era. The two were united in matrimony on the morning of October 24, 1861, in a fairytale wedding at Julia’s family home, Dinglewood, a grand three-story Italianate villa-style mansion built by her father, Joel Early Hurt, around 1859.

Francis Merritt Singer, great-grandson of Isaac Merritt Singer, founder of the Singer Sewing Machine Company, is buried in Linwood Cemetery, Columbus, Georgia.

Denis St. Leger (born c. 1833) emigrated from Ireland to the United States, arriving in 1853. Arriving at about the same time was his wife-to-be, Margaret McCarthy (born c. 1834). Devout Catholics from Brooklodge, County Cork, they were married in Boston at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross in early April 1853.