In the last decade of the 19th century, the Franklin County Probate Court in Columbus, OH, began listing burial locations for the deceased in its published death records. At that time, the majority of Columbus' city graveyards were defunct, and the interments mostly removed to Green Lawn Cemetery in the southwest quadrant of Columbus.

Also during that era, Franklin County began operating a cemetery at the Franklin County Infirmary, Columbus' last "poor house" on Alum Creek Road in Marion Township, which obviated the need for a large municipal cemetery. Columbus maintained a small tract of land a few miles south of the city limits that was occasionally used to bury the poor and unclaimed or unidentified transients. Court records referring to the Columbus' South Cemetery were sometimes noted as "city cemetery," and sometimes as "potter's field," which accurately defines its function.

The South graveyard property was adjacent to the Franklin County Pest House, where deceased people with highly communicable and deadly diseases such as small pox were interred, rendering the larger tract of little commercial value to the city.

In his book _The Columbus City Graveyards_, © 1985, author and historian Donald M. Schlegel explains the disposition of the graveyard both before and after its demise: "At a meeting of the county commissioners held on May 18, 1893 the entire tract was declared to be surplus and on the same day was sold to Frank J. Reinhard and Jared P. Bliss for $12,000.33 The tract was platted as Johnson's South Grove Addition in 1898 but the lots did not sell well and most of the plat was vacated in 1912. The Johnsons then sold off the land in larger tracts but were unable to sell the graveyard until 1938." (p. 37)

Eventually, the city paved over parts of the former graveyard to provide access to housing development via Fifth Street. Apparently there had been little attempt to relocate the deceased because workers found graves during excavation and construction of private homes situated on the former cemetery site.

While Columbus' South Graveyard is now defunct and completely obliterated by progress, it remains the final known resting place of an unknown number of people. The memorials in this cemetery document burials archived in the Franklin County Probate Court death ledgers from about 1890 until sometime in the early 20th century, under circumstances where there is no subsequent record of reinterment and no other memorial demonstrating relocation.