Driving into Yatesville, this headstone caught my attention, but I figured it would be like so many others I’ve found: a small family plot long forgotten by the passage of time. And though that was true to some extent, what I learned about the man who was buried here was quite fascinating. It turns out that this was the cemetery of Bellwood Hall, an early plantation owned by one of Georgia’s earliest rural physicians, Dr. David Lane Kendall, Sr. (17 January 1790-28 July 1860) Dr. Kendall was born in Washington County in 1790 and moved to Upson County in 1830 where he built Bellwood, a grand plantation house complete with formal gardens. It was destroyed by fire sometime in the late 1800s, but thanks to the foresight of his daughter, Loula, much of its history survives in special collections at Emory University.
