LEPAGEVILLE MEMORIAL CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1885

ADDITONAL NAMES: Brewton Hill, Bruton Hill

AFFILIATION(S): N/A

HISTORY:

LePageville Memorial Cemetery is a 19th-century site located in Savannah, Georgia, Chatham County since the late 1800’s. It is all that is left of a workers village set up to house laborers for the Savannah, Florida, and Western Railway, and the Savannah River wharves. In 1967, the LePageville Community, about 9 acres, was condemned and later demolished because of hazardous and unhealthy living conditions. Present day descendants and concerned citizens now work together to uncover and preserve the history of the LePageville Community and its embedded burial ground. What is left is only 3.85 acres that were sold to the LePageville Memorial Cemetery Corporation for $1.00 in 2002. We have lost the rest to development and commercialization. Records estimate that at least 500 people were buried at LePageville between 1888 and 1967. Although this African American property dates back to 1885, it was preceded in use as a part of the expansive 250-acre Brewton Hill Plantation which housed residents enslaved by Miles Brewton dating back to the late 1775. It was later purchased by Thomas Causton of Causton Bluff Plantation) in 1852. This land is also significant to Savannah-Chatham County history as the site of the Battle of Brewton Hill on December 29, 1778, during the American Revolutionary War. This is documentation of the LePageville grounds during a key event in American history, not just African American history. The cemetery is the final resting place for laborers who worked on the Liberty ships during World War II, longshoremen, and other laborers crucial to the economy of Savannah, Georgia and the United States. Those buried include the formerly enslaved such as Henrietta Polite, born in 1861 and U.S. veterans. Sadly, no markers or tombstones of any type remain. We wish to remove the underbrush, identify burial sites, and create a beautiful green space to honor the interred.

BCN Contact Information:

Prof. Patricia A. West

authorpatwest@gmail.com

MACEDONIA AFRICAN METHODIST CHURCH CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1880

ADDITONAL NAMES: Warsaw AME cemetery

AFFILIATION(S):

• Johns Creek Historical Society

HISTORY:

THE CEMETERY

Hidden up a steep winding driveway near one of the busiest intersections in the City of Johns Creek, Georgia is a small African-American cemetery. The Macedonia African Methodist Church Cemetery (also known as Warsaw AME cemetery) is known to be the burial place of at least two who were enslaved and others who were first and second generation descendants of slaves on local farms. The cemetery has been abandoned for years and is in need of headstone repairs, identification of unmarked graves, and research to learn about those buried on the site.

The Johns Creek Historical Society involvement- Several years ago, the Johns Creek Historical Society took on the project of preserving and improving the cemetery by working with the City and by researching those buried at the site. This project is led by Board Member Kirk Canaday.

Our efforts follow those of others. In 1998, the Warsaw Historic Preservation Society was formed and through their efforts, Fulton County obtained a maintenance easement to the property. The group also tried to have an overlay historic district formed for the area surrounding the intersection of Medlock and State Bridge roads. In 2016, Preserve Johns Creek contracted an archaeological survey by New South Associates that mapped marked graves and potential unmarked graves.

BCN Contact Information:

Johns Creek Historical Society

info@johnscreekhistory.org

johnscreekhistory.org

ZION HILL CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1868

ADDITONAL NAMES: Zion Hill Colored Baptist Cemetery

AFFILIATION(S):

• Preserve & Serve Georgia Inc

HISTORY:

Zion Hill Cemetery, a historic African American Baptist Burial Site, was established in 1868 as a “colored cemetery” for the Zion Hill Colored Baptist Church in Monroe, Georgia shortly after the Civil War. Land was purchased by former enslaved man Cyrus Briscoe from his former enslaver, Waters Briscoe. Cyrus sold a portion of the land to church trustees. Church records indicate in 1868, a log cabin was built for use as the “Colored People Church.” In 1870, a wooden structure was built next to the log cabin. The church changed its name to Zion Hill Colored Baptist Church. After a few months, about 20 church members pulled away and formed the Tabernacle Baptist Church. In 1949, Zion Hill Church reunited with the Tabernacle Baptist Church under the name, First African Baptist Church. The church divided in 1953, and the First African Baptist Church and Tabernacle Baptist Church moved to new locations, abandoning the Zion Hill Cemetery site and leaving it vulnerable.

BCN Contact Information:

Elizabeth Jones

preserveandservegeorgiainc@gmail.com

https://www.zionhillcemetery.com

GOSPEL PILGRIM CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1882

ADDITONAL NAMES: N/A

AFFILIATION(S): N/A

HISTORY:

Gospel Pilgrim Cemetery is located in Athens, Georgia. The cemetery was founded 1882 by the Gospel Pilgrim Society, a Black benevolent organization, “to see to it that that deceased among their number, as well as all others of their race, not otherwise provided for, are properly and decently interred.” Over the course of its one-hundred-and twenty-one-year history, around 3,500 African Americans were buried in the cemetery (approximately twenty to twenty-five percent of those were formerly enslaved individuals). Most were interred during the cemetery’s heyday in the 1930s and 1940s, but many prominent Black Athenians from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries are buried at Gospel Pilgrim: Monroe Bowers “Pink” Morton was born a slave in 1856, but rose to become a wealthy Athenian and the owner of the Morton Theatre; Harriet Powers was a famous folk artist and quilter; Madison Davis went from slavery to the Georgia Legislature in 1868; and Ellen Green was a local resident who became a dean at Fisk University. Gradually, the cemetery fell into disarray and, after 1960, fewer and fewer people were laid to rest within its geographic bounds. In 1977, the last surviving member of the Gospel Pilgrim Society died of a heart attack. No long-term arrangement had been made for the cemetery's perpetual care, and it now has no legal owner. While nature as reclaimed the landscape, student and community groups sponsor occasional work-days to remove weeds, clear fallen branches, and pick-up trash. The last burials occurred in the early 2000s.

BCN Contact Information:

Tracy Barnett

tracy.barnett@uga.edu

RED HILL CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1800s

ADDITONAL NAMES: N/A

AFFILIATION(S):

• Okefenokee Heritage Center

HISTORY:

Red Hill Cemetery is an approximately six-acre historically Black cemetery located in Waycross, GA. It contains roughly 2,000 burials and has unfortunately experienced vandalism for the past several decades. Red Hill is an important site for the surrounding African American community; numerous local residents have family members and other loved ones buried there. Oral Histories with local descendants reveal the untold stories of Black life in Waycross, of the churches and schools that were central spaces in the community, of the accomplishments and perseverance of African Americans. In this way, Red Hill is an important archive of local Black history. Through a collaboration between the University of North Florida and the Okefenokee Heritage Center, faculty, students, staff and community members have come together to restore Red Hill and document its history.

BCN Contact Information:

Felicia Bevel

felicia.bevel@unf.edu

SHELTON FAMILY CEMETERY

FOUNDED: Pre- 1850 (Possibly as early as 1830)

ADDITONAL NAMES: Possum Trot Cemetery and Church

AFFILIATION(S): N/A

HISTORY:

In 1874, my formerly enslaved third great-grandparents on my maternal ancestral line, Hardy and Mary Bearden Shelton, relocated to the Flatwoods District of Floyd County, Rome, Georgia, from nearby Coosa. Hardy was a farmer and Mary a healer. Hardy purchased 120 acres of land, which was the beginning of the Shelton Family Settlement, and it was on this land that his family grew to 12 children. Through hard work and family and community loyalty, the adult children and their spouses, purchased additional acreage and expanded the Settlement to nearly 700 acres. While at some points in time the families were prosperous, few could read and write, which lead to loss, theft, or appropriation of their land. By the mid-1920's much of the land was no longer in the possession of Shelton family members. The families migrated to other parts of the country, with a few remaining in the Rome area. Today, only the Shelton Family cemetery remains, which holds 60+ graves, 13 with a marker identifying the family member at eternal rest, but most are marked with fieldstones. A few yards from the Cemetery is the Possum Trot Church, which had many other names prior to 1902. In 1902 or so, the area became known as Possum Trot when Martha McChesney Berry, the founder of Berry College, came on the scene from her nearby home, known as Oak Hill.

Some members of the Shelton Family Settlement married members of the Freemantown Settlement of formerly enslaved blacks, located a few miles away. Both of these Settlements are now on land claimed to be owned by Berry College, a private institution, the largest land mass college in the world. While we, the descendants of the Shelton, Spruce, Shropshire, and other families, have forged a relationship with Berry College, it has been a slow slog to get them to acknowledge our ancestors. It seems there is resistance to letting the Berry community and the surrounding community know that indeed there is a cemetery full of black people directly behind the Possum Trot Church that is dubbed as the "Cradle of the College", where it all began for Martha Berry and her teaching to the "mountain children" (all white).

We are currently working with Berry College to ensure its students, faculty and the community near and far are aware of the stewards (including the Cherokee Nation) of the land that Berry College now claims and sits upon.

BCN Contact Information:

Angela R. James

angelarjames.sdhs.org@gmail.com

JOHNSONVILLE CEMETERY

FOUNDED: N/A

ADDITONAL NAMES: N/A

AFFILIATION(S): N/A

HISTORY:

Where Dobbins Air reserve base and Lockheed Martin currently reside, a community called Johnsonville was established, founded, and built by freed enslaved peoples. In 1942 during WWII, the government acquired the Sibley Family Plantation land, where Mount Sinai Church and the Johnsonville community resided, in order to build an aircraft factory and Air Base. The Johnsonville community were forced to move to another location and the Mt. Sinai Church moved to Marietta. While the church was moved off the base, the Johnsonville Cemetery, which is the resting place of the freed enslaved and their families, still remains on what is now called the Dobbins Air reserve Base.

BCN Contact Information:

22nd Air Force public affairs

yesenia.castro_vazquez@is.af.mil

PINEY GROVE CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1820s

ADDITONAL NAMES: Historic Piney Grove Cemetery

AFFILIATION(S): None

HISTORY:

Piney Grove Cemetery, located at 834 Canterbury Road, is the last remaining historic landmark of Piney Grove, a former African-American community that likely dates back to the mid-1820s. Located in Buckhead, a predominately white wealthy area of Atlanta, the cemetery has over 300 graves, some of which hold the remains of formerly enslaved people, who helped build Atlanta. Oral history accounts state burials have occurred in the cemetery since the mid- 1800s and headstones, now obscured by vegetation, mark graves of individuals born before the Emancipation Proclamation. This sacred site is also a historically significant landmark for Atlanta and has been determined to be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.

The church building for Piney Grove Missionary Baptist Church was demolished after it suffered storm damage in 1996. Today, although original headstones remain intact, the cemetery is tragically unrecognizable and inaccessible due to overgrowth of vegetation. It is bordered by GA 400 on the west and mid-rise condominium development on the north and south. It can be accessed by an easement however lacks any signage. The restoration project will preserve the culture and history embedded in this African American cemetery and will lift the history of an enslaved and post-emancipated people. It will contribute to ensuring that the full history of Buckhead is known and that the memories of the lives of all people are treated with respect and dignity.

BCN Contact Information:

Audrey Collins

audrey.collins@comcast.net

MACEDONIA ENSLAVE/NATIVE CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1818

ADDITONAL NAMES: Old Macedonia Cemetery Morven, Georgia

AFFILIATION(S):

• Macedonia Community Foundation, Inc

HISTORY:

The Macedonia Slave/Native Cemetery dates back to 1818 when settlers moved into the Wiregrass Territories now identified as Brooks, Lowndes, Thomas and other counties. Oral and physical history documents tombstones and burial crypts from that era up to the early 1930's. These enslaved are the ones who built the historic Coffee Road and maintained the huge plantations during the Civil War era. The Coffee Road was the main road of travel to Florida. The enslaved, Andrew Jackson I and Romeo Wilson I who eventually purchased this property owned a grist mill and established a way station here where The Federal Colored Troops Company G 103 Regiment encamped to protect the Freedmen after the Civil war. They are buried here together with at least 100 other enslaved family and friends.

BCN Contact Information:

Fannie Marie Jackson Gibbs

fmjgibbs@gmail.com

PIERCE CHAPEL AFRICAN AMERICAN CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1834

ADDITONAL NAMES: None

AFFILIATION(S):

• African American Cemetery Coalition

HISTORY:

The site of Pierce Chapel African American Cemetery was established ca. 1834 as a designated burial ground for enslaved Africans. Following the Civil War, their descendants and surrounding Black settlements continued the tradition of African burial practices at this site. They were amongst the first persons of color to own land in the Black Belt of Harris County, Ga. Many of whom were farmers, skilled artisans and military veterans having served honorably in World War I and II.

The recorded documentary history for Pierce Chapel Cemetery has been scarce and, in some cases, non-existent. Our recent discovery of archaeological artifacts and evidence of traditional African burial rituals presents an opportunity to raise cultural awareness, create a documentary history, and tell the stories of under-acknowledged communities and the lasting contributions that have shaped the landscape of American society.

BCN Contact Information:

Hamilton Hood Foundation

info@hamiltonhood.org

hamiltonhood.org

BROOKLYN CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1882

ADDITONAL NAMES: Bethlehem Cemetery

AFFILIATION(S):

• Historic Athens

• Morton Theatre Corporation

HISTORY:

Established in 1882, the Brooklyn Cemetery (http://www.brooklyncemetery.org/)—founded by the Bethlehem Cemetery Society—was one of the first African American cemeteries in Athens, Georgia. Located on the western side of Athens, the cemetery served as a final resting place for many African Americans from Athens and surrounding communities. The people buried there were largely working class—tradespeople of the period, farmers, preachers, teachers, and professionals in the service industry.

Known burials include 54 documented veterans of the Civil War, World Wars I and II, and the Korean War. Several historic African American churches used the cemetery, including Hill First Baptist Church (the oldest African American Baptist church in Athens, Georgia; Mount Pleasant Baptist Church (established in 1869), First A.M.E. (the oldest African American church in Athens, established as Pierce Chapel in 1866) and Hill Chapel Baptist Church (established in 1924). Three long-standing Athens funeral homes, Hurley, Mack and Payne, and Jackson-McWhorter also had designated areas in the cemetery.

The nearly 10-acre site has been the subject of restoration and preservation efforts for nearly 20 years, roughly three decades after the cemetery began to fall into disrepair. Although many of the temporary grave markers have been lost, some remain standing—strong and visible, while remnants of others remain. Volunteers have unearthed old, weathered stones and other artifacts, cleared away tons of debris, and documented roughly 1,000 known burials, with the last one occurring in 1993. The Brooklyn Cemetery is owned by the Bethlehem Cemetery Society.

BCN Contact Information:

Kimberly Davis

info@brooklyncemetery.org

https://www.historicathens.com/