Prosperity Cemetery Prosperity, South Carolina

Text courtesy of the National Register of Historic Places, a program of the National Parks Service. Minor transcription errors or changes in formatting may have occurred; please see the Nomination Form PDF for official text. Some information may have become outdated since the property was nominated for the Register.

The Prosperity Cemetery, in Prosperity, Newberry County, South Carolina, is eligible for listing in the National Register of Historic Places at the local level of significance under Criterion C in the Area of Significance of Art 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 is an outstanding example of a backcountry cemetery, containing a concentration of markers -signed- by local merchants, marble yard owners, and stonecutters. In fact, unlike the White brothers of Charleston (William T., Robert D., and Edwin R. White), who provided so many examples of notable gravestone art throughout the state throughout the nineteenth century, in cities such as Columbia, Spartanburg, Greenville, and Beaufort, Prosperity's grave art is almost exclusively local. The cemetery contains approximately one dozen -signed- markers. J.R. Leavell, L.M. Spears, and H. Miller all hailed from the nearby city of Newberry in Newberry County, South Carolina. J.R. Leavell and L.M. Spears were particularly well known locally, not only as a merchant and a stone cutter respectively, but also as outstanding community members and veterans of the Civil War.