 Gordon died in Savannah in 1842 from bilious pleurisy and was originally buried in Colonial Cemetery in that city; however, his grave was later moved to Laurel Grove Cemetery.One year later, in 1843 the railroad he founded desecrated the important Native American site of Ocmulgee National Monument, sacred to the Creek Indians, when it constructed a rail line through the site that partially destroyed the Lesser Temple Mound.In 1873, the Central Railroad built a second rail line through the site, this time nearly destroying the Funeral Mound which contained the graves of the ancestors of the Creek Indians.