Grave of Thomas Bullitt

Lone grave tucked into the Kanawha Riflemen's Park

In a small triangle of grass between Capitol Street and the river, easy to miss, sits the lone grave of Thomas Bullitt — a single weathered headstone in the centre of what is now called the Kanawha Riflemen's Memorial Park. The setting is unexpectedly intimate: a few benches, a flag pole, and one grave at the centre of a busy downtown crossroads.

The park is named for the volunteer militia that mustered here in 1861. The grave is open at all times; a small plaque explains the unlikely journey of Bullitt's bones to the spot.

things to do sight
A story
Thomas Bullitt was a Virginia surveyor and Revolutionary War officer who never lived in Charleston — but his bones, exhumed in the late nineteenth century from a forgotten plot in Virginia, were transferred to a small memorial park here because his brother Cuthbert Bullitt was a founder of Charleston.