Posted on 01/28/2005 8:12:11 AM PST by stainlessbanner
HENDERSONVILLE, N.C. - Descendants of slaves will work along with men of Confederate ancestry to clean up an overgrown cemetery where the oldest graves belong to free blacks buried before the Civil War.
The Sons of Confederate Veterans Walt Bryson Camp 70 began visiting old family and church cemeteries in Henderson County in an effort to find Confederate veterans. They soon discovered many of the historic cemeteries were endangered by development and neglect.
Some had houses built on top of them and others were plowed under in fields.
Louis Dunbar, who represents blacks on the county Cemetery Advisory Committee, also discovered that Mill Pond Cemetery was in bad shape and asked for some help.
The upper section of the cemetery is well maintained, but the lower section is covered in 7-foot-tall pampas grass, small trees, stumps and fallen logs.
"These cemeteries need preserved out of respect and for their historical value," Dunbar said. "There has been too much disrespect of the grave sites in this county."
Whites and blacks are buried in the lower portion of the cemetery, said James Miller, whose ancestors deeded the land for a church and cemetery in 1859. That section of the cemetery was open to paupers for free burials, he said.
The oldest graves apparently belong to blacks.
Ellen Jones, who died in 1812, and Markus Henry, who died in 1865, are listed in early census reports as free blacks. James Harren, also buried in the lower section, was one of three men deeded land by Noble Johnson to establish a school in Colored District No. 4 in 1875, only 10 years after the end of the Civil War.
"We know there was a community of free blacks who lived in that area," said Evelyn Jones with the Henderson County Genealogical and Historical Society. "But not much else about them."
The tall, thick grass is growing so fast that it is encroaching on the upper section of the cemetery. The grave marker of Edgar A. Lamb, 1890-1962, was found hidden in the grass.
Norman Miller of the Sons of Confederate Veterans said the cleanup will take hours of work with many volunteers wielding machetes, bush axes and swing blades to clear out the grass.
During a cleanup about five years ago, the grass at the cemetery was burned.
"I can understand why they burned it," Norman Miller said. "But I don't feel comfortable with that myself. It will blacken the stones and we need to decipher every stone we possibly can."
dixiebump
Amen.
I'm glad it's being cleaned up. The state of some of our historical landmarks are horrible.
Wasn't this posted yesterday?
Oops - it was....
free dixie,sw
Amen again...for all.
Hendersonville ping!
How interesting! I love old cemeteries.
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