BERRY CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1880

ADDITONAL NAMES: Holy Resurrection Cemetery

AFFILIATION(S):

• Ozarks Afro-American Heritage Museum

HISTORY:

The Berry Cemetery, also known as Holy Resurrection Cemetery, is an historic African American burial ground; at least 73 individuals, mostly African Americans, have been interred in the cemetery since 1880. The cemetery is located near Ash Grove, a town in southwest Missouri, in the Ozarks region of the U.S. The one-acre cemetery is in a rural setting, on a rise overlooking fields and bordered on three sides by woods. The burial ground itself is a relatively open green space with scattered evergreen and deciduous trees, reached by a dirt track from a paved rural highway.

The Berry Cemetery today contains at least 60 historic grave markers including 25 inscribed head stones, 11 inscribed foot stones, 15 head or foot stones without inscriptions, six concrete markers, and a depression bordered by upright field stones. The cemetery also contains two (or three) stone cairns identified in Berry family oral history as Indigenous burials markers. In addition, in recent years, multiple wooden posts and Orthodox wooden crosses have been placed at previously unmarked graves. Among the historic stone markers, the most common materials are limestone and marble. Gravestone styles include tablet, block, pulpit, cross-vault obelisk, and unshaped fieldstone. Burials are arranged in rows oriented north-south and graves are oriented east-west with headstones at the west end of graves.

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BCN Contact Information:

Dr. Elizabeth Sobel

ESobel@missouristate.edu

Berrycem.com

TAYLOR BLACK CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1893 - first recorded burial

ADDITONAL NAMES: None

AFFILIATION(S): None

HISTORY:

Taylor Black Cemetery located in Bull Head Township, Snow Hill, Greene County, NC was established in 1893 with the first recorded burial being Lucinda Edwards Taylor. The cemetery sits back in the middle of a field in the NC countryside. The land was originally owned by the Taylor family, who appropriated the land for the slaves in the area to be buried. The land was eventually purchased by a black man, Lewis Swinson, but those records have been lost, due to a fire at the Greene County Courthouse in the late 1800's. The cemetery currently sits on the Griffin farm. In 2020 the Gardner family raised funds to clean the 2-acre cemetery and it has been upkept since. In 2022 the Taylor Black Cemetery group was formed with the main purpose to secure funding for the long-term preservation of this unique cemetery.

BCN Contact Information:

Taylor Black Cemetery

taylorblackcemetery@gmail.com

www.taylorblackcemetery.org