FREEDOMLAND CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1854

ADDITONAL NAMES: Colored People's Burial Ground

AFFILIATION(S): N/A

HISTORY:

This site sits in Floyds Knobs, IN which is on the Indiana side of the Louisville metro area. The location is not easy to get to. It's about half a mile hike, deep in the woods on a steep hill and flows into a valley. In the mid 1800's this area would have been considered "the country", of New Albany, IN and Louisville, KY. Many escaping slavery ended up right over the KY border in Southern, Indiana. This would have been one of the segregated cemeteries, in one of the first union cities to border a confederate state in Indiana.

This cemetery contains appx 300 souls, however, some believe there could be closer to 1,000. It's also speculated to possibly be the largest segregated cemetery in the state of Indiana. The site dates back to 1854 from a deed. However, I personally suspect the site to be much older due to the number of stone markers with no information engraved. There are only appx 6-10 headstones that are legible. Most of the sites are marked with a colorful piece of stone. And many are no longer marked at all.

BCN Contact Information:

Piper Robbins

piperrobbins@gmail.com

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

FREEMANTOWN CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1871

ADDITONAL NAMES: Freemans, Jones, Montgomery, Rogers Sanfords

AFFILIATION(S): None

HISTORY:

Several sources, however, make it clear that by this time the name Freemantown is well established. In November 1910 Henrietta Freeman and her children Mingo Freeman, Josephine Rodgers, Henrietta Montgomery, and Fredonia Perry confirm a lost deed from Thomas Freeman to the Trustees of Freemans Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States of America. In a 1949 document describing his 1909 marriage to Luna Presley, Henry Grady Terrell recollects “Driving to Mountain Springs Methodist Church at the foot of Lavender Mountain and just off old Bryant Gap Road … At the home of George Rolland and Sally Vaughn Presley. From there took Luna Presley … And at midafternoon we drove to Freeman Town, then to Redmond Gap Road and drove along the fence toward Rome. To the Rev. William Cooper's home which was about one mile west of Berry Schools an[d] about one half of a mile north of the present Battey State Hospital, and united in Holy matrimony.”[18] In the 1910 census, Luna's father Roland Presley and his second wife Ella, who are white, are enumerated on the same page as Henrietta Freeman’s daughter Josephine Rodgers and her sister-in-law Susan Freeman.

The first sale of Freeman land to the Berry Schools occurred in 1916, when Essex Freeman’s widow, Hannah Montgomery Freeman, sold her portion of Lot 20 for $1,450.[19] By 1920 the impact of the school is becoming significant. School Superintendent Henry Grady Hamrick, his wife Ethel, son, and three Berry students are practically next door to Henrietta Freeman and her granddaughter Beatrice Freeman.[20] Of the children, only Mingo and Francis Freeman are close. Henrietta and Gib Montgomery are in an adjacent district and Hannah Freeman lives in Rome. Fredonia Perry still lives in Tennessee and Henrietta and Gib Montgomery have moved to Michigan. Burials in the Freeman Chapel cemetery will continue for a few years[21], but the end of Freemantown is near.

On 21 March 1923, five months before her death, Henrietta Freeman sold the 25 acres she inherited from Thomas Freeman to the Berry Schools for $800. Fredonia Perry sold the same year. The other children and the heirs of those who had died would hold on to their land for a few more years, finally selling the last of the land in 1926. The places of residence of the sellers include Rome, Georgia; Arlington, Tennessee; Detroit; and Seattle.

Henrietta Freeman died on 17 August 1923, of heart disease, at the age of 95. Her son Mingo Freeman gave information for her death certificate, including the names of her parents, William and Dista Freeman. She was buried at Freemantown Cemetery, on 19 August 1923.

BCN Contact Information:

Cheryl Freeman Snipes

cfsnipes@freemantown.org