Bonaventure Cemetery

On grounds that were formerly part of the Bonaventure Plantation, this cemetery gained national fame when it appeared on the cover of John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. The Bird Girl statue has since been moved to the Telfair Museum of Art for safekeeping. Among those buried here are songwriter Johnny Mercer and Pulitzer prize–winning poet Conrad Aiken. Aiken, who regularly visited the graves of his parents here, had his tombstone fashioned in the shape of a bench, so visitors can rest awhile and even raise a glass, as he did, to toast his party-loving mother. The stone is inscribed with the words “Cosmos Mariner, Destination Unknown,” which he apparently read one day on a ship’s log in town.