Resident Spotlight: Stephen B. Oatman
This is part five of a blog post series highlighting the Oakland Cemetery residents featured in the 2019 Capturing the Spirit of Oakland Halloween tours.
Born in Pownal, Vermont, Stephen B. Oatman followed his eldest brother to Tennessee in the 1840s where he found work in a marble factory. Oatman started his own company in Atlanta in the mid-1850s, manufacturing marble tombstones and monuments. As a maker of tombstones, there was no shortage of business for Oatman following the end of the Civil War. During the war, he fought on the opposite side of his Vermont-based family and served in the fire battalion that surrendered Atlanta in 1864. Oatman ran for city sexton in 1881 but only earned the vote of one councilman. He passed away penniless in 1903, predeceased by his wife and all five of his siblings.