He Slept on a Grave 32.042645° -81.046146°.

32.042645° -81.046146° Other coordinates are at the end of the notes.

Hey, everyone!

Okay… okay… A while back, I heard a story of a famous person doing something that I would never do. I doubt that any of you would either, but, hey, what do I know. Anyway…

I ask myself this question…

Why would a young man… an

Why would a young man… an intelligent and educated young man… hike 700 miles, walk into a strange cemetery where he had never been and knew no one buried there… then unknowingly lie down on an important grave and go to sleep?

educated and young man… hike 700 miles, walk into a strange cemetery where he had never been and knew no one buried there… then unknowingly lie down on an important grave and go to sleep?

You may know the guy.

 

It was John Muir, who was a naturalist and a conservationist and is remembered as one of the fathers of the US National Park system.

Today there are mountains, forests, parks, and two John Muir Trails, one in California in the Sierra Nevada and one in Tennessee in the Cumberland Mountains.

So, why did he come to the cemetery/ and which grave did he sleep on?

Stick around, we’ll look at the clues, and I’ll tell you my take on it.

I’m JD Byous… Welcome to History by GPS, where you travel through history and culture, GPS location by GPS location.

You can find transcripts of the show and all of the coordinates of where these events happened at our website, HistoryByGPS.com.

Okay, get your pencil and paper and I’ll give you the first location and you can follow us on your favorite map app.

Okay, this one is in the back end of Bonaventure Cemetery in Savannah, Georgia

It’s at the coordinates … 32.042645° -81.046146°.

 Now, this location marks the grave where I suspect Muir slept. And it is an important grave.

But first, a little background on the grave-sleeping guy.

John Muir was born in Dunbar, Scotland, in 1838 and his family emigrated to the United States where he grew up in Wisconsin.

He was hard-working and inventive. Loved botany and geology and traveled and studied his scientific passions around Wisconsin, and the states around it, and up into Meaford, Ontario, Canada.

When he was in his twenties, he left the farm and attended college, and became an excellent woodworker, ending up in a carriage factory in Indiana.

A freak accident left him blind for a short time, and when he regained his sight decided that working in a factory wasn’t for him… he wanted to see the world.

When he through to Savannah, Georgia, he was on his famous 1000-mile walk to the gulf, which started in Louisville, Kentucky, and ended in Cedar Key, Florida. From there, he ended up in Yosemite Valley, where he changed history.

As for his stay in Bonaventure… he was there for about five nights.

That was in October, 1867.

So, what are the differences in Bonaventure today you ask?

Well… I’m glad you did.

The birds still chirp and gather seeds. The squirrels still scamper through the oaks, and today, Spanish moss waves in the wind just as it did when Muir visited.

I guess you could say that life among the dead at Bonaventure Cemetery is just… life… a lot like Muir described it back then. He wrote quite a bit about the pl