Swanson Lunsford, a Revolutionary War captain and civic leader in eighteenth-century Columbia, is the only person buried on the South Carolina State House grounds. He died of yellow fever in 1799 and was buried on what was then the southwest corner of the State House grounds. City officials were likely worried about the spread of the deadly disease and decided that this was a safer place than a public or church cemetery for Lunsford’s burial. His descendants placed the first marker at the site in 1837. In 1927, the marker attracted attention after being reported "stolen," when Lunsford's great-grandson temporarily removed the marker and had it cleaned by Bruns & Davis. His great-great-granddaughter installed the current gravestone, which encloses the original and repeats its inscription, in 1953.