Williams Cemetery

Front: This cemetery dates to the 1820s and was in use prior to the founding of the Town of Aiken (1835). It was established by the local Williams family, who were among Aiken’s earliest settlers and used this as their burial ground for several generations. The cemetery was originally part of a plantation anchored by a main house 2/10 mi. NW. Twenty members of the Williams family are known to be buried here in graves dating from 1824 to 1922. Reverse: Among those interred here is family patriarch William White Williams (1787-1845), a state representative who in the early 1830s deeded land for the construction of the S.C. Railroad, which spurred Aiken’s creation. A member of the Burckhalter family is also buried here. The cemetery is also said to contain the unmarked grave of a solider buried here by the Williams family after being fatally wounded during a nearby skirmish between Confederate and Union troops in Feb. 1865.