AFRICAN UNION CHURCH CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1835

ADDITONAL NAMES: N/A

AFFILIATION(S): N/A

HISTORY:

Property bought in 1835 by five Black residents of Polktown, the adjacent free Black hamlet: site of original small church. Polktown was one of the earliest free Black settlements in Delaware. The church later moved into Polktown proper. At least Five United States Colored Troops veterans are buried here, and a handful of other markers remain. The restored cemetery and memorial plaza come at the end of two decades of work and research. See www.africanunioncemetery.org and Facebook.

BCN Contact Information:

Friends of the AUCC

africanunioncemetery@gmail.com

www.africanunioncemetery.org

SPRING VALLEY AME CHURCH AND CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1880

ADDITONAL NAMES: N/A

AFFILIATION(S): N/A

HISTORY:

Spring Valley AME is a small church once affiliated with Mother Bethel AME. Located in Concord Ville (Glen Mills) Delaware County PA. The exterior has been renovated & a grave marker placed for those buried there. The AME Church is listed on the Concord Township Historic Resources Inventory as Resource #132, and as such is covered under the Concord Township Historic Preservation Ordinance. The church is a Class 2, meaning it is historically significant to the local history, being the only black church in the township.

Well-known African American Concord Ville soldier and patriot, James T. Byrd, born March 10, 1905 and passed away on May 8, 1985, was a member of Spring Valley AME Church. He is buried in what was called the “colored people’s” cemetery. James Byrd was the father of Betty Byrd Smith (a civil rights activist) and Thomas Byrd.

BCN Contact Information:

Concord Township Historical Society

https://concordhist.org/about-the-society/

610-459-8556

Clark Family Cemetery

FOUNDED: 1830s

AFFILIATION(S): N/A

HISTORY:

In the 1790s, soon after Vermont became a state, a Black family originally enslaved in Connecticut, migrated to northern Vermont. Shubael and Violet Clark chose a rural hill in Hinesburgh with good loamy soil to farm, which the family did for three generations. They were successful, becoming members of the Baptist Church, attending local schools, and voting in town elections. The farm was sold off in pieces after the Civil War, as soldiers from this family returned home from the war. They no longer wished to farm the hill country and moved down into the Champlain Valley to continue farming. One soldier, Loudon Langley, stayed in South Carolina and became a founding father of Radical Reconstruction. He is buried in the National Cemetery in Beaufort, SC but his ancestors are in the Clark Cemetery. We have found no other Black cemetery in VT.

BCN Contact Information:

Elise A. Guyette

eguy949@gmail.com

WEBBER CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1856

ADDITONAL NAMES: Webber Family Preservation Project

AFFILIATION(S):

• Webber Family Preservation Project

HISTORY:

John Webber & Silvia Hector-Webber were Texas settlers who established current day Webberville in Travis County Texas. John was an Anglo from Vermont and Silvia was born enslaved in Spanish territory Florida current day Louisiana. John Webber met Silvia while she was enslaved by another Anglo Texas settler John Crier. John Webber began a relationship with Silvia, and they conceived 3 children before being able to obtain their freedom from John Crier in 1834. John and Silvia were married by Father Michael Muldoon and established a home together on the Colorado River. They raised 10 children in their settlement before being forced to flee due to threats by intolerant new settlers.

They purchased land on the Rio Grande River border in Hidalgo County Texas and on the Mexico side in current day Tamaulipas in 1854. At their ranch “Webber Rancho Veijo” they owned and operated a ferry which they used to aid enslaved peoples in their fight for freedom into Mexico where slavery had been abolished. During the civil war John and 3 of their sons were arrested by the confederate army as Union sympathizers. After the Civil war they resided in Mexico until 1880 before returning to their Ranch in Texas. John Webber died on July 19, 1882 and Silvia remained on the Webber Ranch till her death on September 13, 1892. They are buried in the cemetery still present and open where their ranch once stood. It was recently approved for an undertold history marker through the Texas Historical Commission, for their part in the Underground Railroad into Mexico.

BCN Contact Information:

Leslie Trevino

wfpptx@gmail.com

http://webbefamilypreservation.org/index.html

MACEDONIA BAPTIST CHURCH CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1968

ADDITONAL NAMES: James Thomas Howard

AFFILIATION(S): None

HISTORY:

First church erected by former enslaved families in Hillsdale/Barry Farm, a new African American settlement established by the Freedmen’s Bureau in 1867 to help relieve the housing problem encountered by black refugees who had arrived in Washington in droves during the Civil War. The idea for the settlement grew out of a meeting between General O.O. Howard, commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau, and a group of African American refugees living in a makeshift settlement on K Street between 14th and 17th Streets. Howard told the group that they could not stay on land that was not theirs. They responded “very pertinently,” according to Howard’s autobiography, “‘Where shall we go, and what shall we do?’” Howard replied with a question of his own: “What would make you self-supporting?” and heard an almost unanimous answer: “Land! Give us Land!”

The Freedmen’s Bureau responded by creating a settlement for newly arrived African Americans, offering to sell them lots and enough lumber to build a small house. In April 1867 the agency spent $52,000 to buy 375 acres of farmland from the Barry family (former slave owners) on the eastern bank of the Eastern Branch, as the Anacostia River was then known. The land was quickly surveyed into one-acre lots that “were taken with avidity,” Howard noted, because the prospect of owning land was an excellent stimulus for the newly freed African Americans. “Everyone who visited the Barry Farm and saw the new hopefulness with which most of the dwellers there were inspired,” Howard recalled, “could not fail to regard the entire enterprise as judicious and beneficent.”

Macedonia was quickly built on one of the first plots purchased.

BCN Contact Information:

Trish Savage

tsavage2737@comcast.net

MOUNT PEACE CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1900

ADDITONAL NAMES: Mount Peace Cemetery Association

AFFILIATION(S): None

HISTORY:

Established in 1900, Mount Peace Cemetery is a historic African American community burial place located in Lawnside, Camden County, NJ. No longer an active burying ground, Mount Peace is the final resting place of 7,000 people, including freedom seekers, 135 United States Colored Troop Civil War veterans, and Reverend Alexander Heritage Newton, whose 1917 autobiography, Out of the Briars describes his assistance to freedom seeker H.E. Bryan on his journey from New Bern, North Carolina.

A non-sectarian cemetery, Mount Peace served the African American population of Camden County, New Jersey from 1900 until 2010. Today it is maintained by the Mount Peace Cemetery Association. Mount Peace Cemetery is located in a historically African American enclave with roots into the early 19th Century and is significant to the Underground Railroad. Nineteenth century references to this unincorporated community called it Free Haven and Snow Hill. This was a place of settlement of freedom seekers in these early years. By the 1830s an AME Church was established there. The area was formally incorporated as Lawnside in 1907. The Mount Peace Cemetery and Funeral Directing Company was established in 1900 to provide the African American population of the City of Camden, New Jersey and surrounding communities appropriate and respectful burial of their dead.

BCN Contact Information:

Dolly Marshall

contact@mtpeacecemeteryassociation.org

https://www.mtpeacecemeteryassociation.org

LEBANON CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1872

ADDITONAL NAMES: None

AFFILIATION(S):

• Pennsylvania Hallowed Grounds

HISTORY:

Founded in 1872, Historic Lebanon Cemetery in York, PA was established when the African American citizens in the area came together to purchase almost 2 acres of land to bury their families with dignity and respect. Segregated burial practices existed at the time (and continued through the 1960s), leaving the only other option for burial the “Potter’s Field”, which was overcrowded and preyed upon by grave robbers. The original 2 acres eventually grew to 5 acres over years. The cemetery reflects the diverse historical development of York; former enslaved have been laid to rest among freedmen and women and the Civil War soldiers who fought for their freedom, and men and women transcend the social barriers of life to coexist in death.

Lebanon Cemetery may be York County’s largest and oldest Black-owned cemetery.

BCN Contact Information:

Samantha L. Dorm

sdorm@friendsoflebanoncemetery.com

https://pahallowedgrounds.org/

MOUNT HOLLY COLORED CEMETERY

FOUNDED: Oldest identified burial 1888

ADDITONAL NAMES: None

AFFILIATION(S): None

HISTORY:

The Mount Holly Colored Cemetery is on Cedar Street near Mountain Street in Mount Holly Springs, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. During and after the Civil War, people coming north from southern states stopped in Mount Holly Springs and stayed to take the jobs in the town’s paper mills, establishing the Mountain Street community. The cemetery was the burial ground for all the black residents of Mount Holly Springs since they were not permitted to be interred in the town’s municipal cemetery.

Over time the community changed. By 1970 Mount Tabor AME, a small frame church (ca 1870) across the road, was abandoned and crumbling and the cemetery neglected and overgrown. The Mount Tabor Preservation Project was formed in 2019 to repair and preserve the site. GPR scans indicate the grounds included approximately 65 burials, although only 18 headstones exist. There are seven USCT Civil War veterans who were formerly enslaved.

BCN Contact Information:

Mount Tabor Preservation Project

mttaborpreservation@gmail.com

https://www.mttaborpreservation.com/

ANDERSON CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1867

ADDITONAL NAMES: None

AFFILIATION(S): None

HISTORY:

Anderson Cemetery is one of the earliest black cemeteries in the Yellow Tavern area of Henrico County, outside Richmond, VA. William Kennedy, clerk of Mount Olive Baptist Church, formed the Sons of Jacob, a fraternal organization which pledged "to attend to each other in times of sickness and distress and to see each other decently buried after death." This two-acre cemetery continued to serve the community for more than a century and includes the graves of ex-slaves, freeborn blacks, farmers, pastors, business leaders and war veterans. Grave markers provided by families, church aid clubs, fraternal groups and other organizations reflect the strong bonds formed across the community.

BCN Contact Information:

Tony Wharton

bluepeter37@gmail.com

MIDLAND CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1870's

ADDITONAL NAMES: Friends of Midland

AFFILIATION(S):

• Pa Hallowed Grounds

HISTORY:

The history of Midland Cemetery is a simple one. The burial site was started circa 1795 for the purpose of burying those who were working on or near the old farm which later became known as the Kelker Farm in the 1800’s. Midland did not actually get its legal name until around 1877. Midland Cemetery holds the remains of those who once were in servitude bondage either from another state or Pennsylvania and became free. Reading of the various headstones and in research we have noted veterans interred in these hallowed grounds are the United States Colored Troops, which were the Black men who volunteered to serve during the Civil War, the Buffalo Soldiers, who fought in and open up the West (Champaign). Headstones show soldiers of World War I and II, followed by the Korean War.

Aside from the various military men and possibly a few women (still researching), there are also the many leaders of the community. Ministers of churches which are still functioning in the Steelton, Harrisburg and Swatara Township area such as Monumental AME, Mt Zion Baptist, Goodwin Memorial, Beulah Baptist and the First Baptist Church to name a few. They are buried alongside of their deacons and deaconess and many of their church members.

Throughout the cemetery you will find family plots with and without headstones or markers. Over the years of restoration and reclaiming the cemetery we have found numerous amounts of babies, young children and teenagers. Some of the youth attended the “School for Colored Children” known as the Hygienic School, which was part of the Steelton School system.

Midland has wrapped its arms around the Black doctors, mothers and fathers, brothers, sisters and even the known abolitionist. Midland also has a Negro league baseball player, a writer and publisher of a local newspaper who was also Steelton’s first Black Councilman in the late 1800’s. It holds the remains of persons from our area that seemed to be ahead of the times.

BCN Contact Information:

Friends of Midland

mscmtyldy@aol.com

https://pahallowedgrounds.org/

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

NEW GOLDEN GROVE METHODIST CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1875

ADDITONAL NAMES: Golden Grove Chapel

AFFILIATION(S):

• Friends of African American Cemeteries

• Churches Upstate SC

HISTORY:

A historically Black neighborhood on the outskirts of the Piedmont Mill village, can be found nestled in rolling hills near the Saluda River. It is located to the northeast from the former site of the Piedmont Manufacturing Co., across the train tracks. Golden Grove Chapel cemetery is the only extant site of a late 19th century through early 20th century, Black community located near the Piedmont Mill Village community. Many of the people who belonged to the church and are buried in the cemetery, had been associated with Piedmont Manufacturing Co. The parcel is associated with African American ethnic heritage and social history. It provides a glimpse of a community that contributed significantly to the development of the Piedmont Manufacturing Co. and mill village community yet has never been included in any historical survey or narrative. The distinct cultural line is literally separated by railroad tracks This historic district includes a cemetery, the primary contributing resource, including 20 contributing objects and 3 noncontributing objects.

While many of the burials include former mill laborers who contributed significantly to the construction and daily operations of the Piedmont Manufacturing Co., other burials provide extant information of people who moved here to work for the railroad and the mill.

By 1880 the population of African Americans. Piedmont Manufacturing Co. laid its 1st stone in 1874 which was the lynchpin to a population boom in Piedmont. While New Golden Grove cemetery was not the only burial place for Black people in Piedmont, it has always allowed people to be buried here who could not afford burial elsewhere or did not have a church home. This was a mission church at heart. This site retains much of its historical integrity as it has retained much of the material, feeling, and association common in African American cemeteries. The cemetery has a wide variety of funerary art and landscape features traditional to African American burials. Vegetation such as periwinkle, daffodils, and large cedar trees are used as grave markers, along with the traditional headstones and field stones. The grave markers are as diverse as the people buried here. They include old and new funeral home cards, field stones, ledgers, pedestal tomb-vaulted roof, and many governments issued headstones. The burials are clustered in some areas, yet uniform rows can be found, indicating they adopted some of European American burial practices.

The property was deeded to the trustees, of Golden Grove Chapel of the Methodist Episcopal Church on December 21st, 1875, by Mrs. Henrietta Shockley after paying twenty dollars. The trustees were Henry Kirksey, Sawney Westfield, and David Richardson. The deed stated the property can only be used for school and church purposes

BCN Contact Information:

Christina Griswold

cgriswold120@gmail.com

https://www.facebook.com/UpstateAfricanAmericanCemeteriesandChurchesSC

SECOND ASBURY AME CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1850

ADDITONAL NAMES: Cherry Lane Cemetery

AFFILIATION(S):

• Greater Astoria Historical Society

• NYGenWeb

HISTORY:

The land was deeded in 1850 by John and Tabitha Blake to the Second Asbury AME congregation so they would have a church a cemetery. The congregation included families from New York, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia. Among the interred in Benjamin Prine, the last enslaved person born on Staten Island who died in 1900 aged anywhere from 99-111. We know this because he was so well-regarded that his obituary made the wire services and was printed as far away as Iowa. Also, Benjamin, although enslaved at the time, was also a veteran of the War of 1812. (Slavery was outlawed in New York in 1827.)

Sadly, the church was torn down by vandals in the 1880s, and what few headstones that existed were broken. It also had the misfortune of being located in what would become, as far back as the early 1900s, a commercial and business district, and was zoned commercial, even though it was a cemetery.

In the 1950s, the city sued the board members for back taxes totaling over $11,000 because of its zoning. Since there were no headstones and no burials had taken place since c.1910, no one nearby testified that it was a cemetery, although there are municipal maps dating back to the 1850s that show it was. The city therefore illegally seized the property since the taxes couldn’t be paid, the cemetery was bought by a family of real estate attorneys, and it was turned into a Shell station in 1963. By 1985 it had become the strip mall it currently is today. No bodies were ever moved because, it was argued, there was no cemetery.

I was able to track down Benjamin Prine’s descendants, and even though they live a mile from the cemetery and their aunt was on the cemetery board, they knew nothing about their ancestor, the cemetery, or that there had been slavery on Staten Island, because an entire history of theirs had been paved over.

BCN Contact Information:

Heather Quinlan

canvasback.kid1@gmail.com

https://www.heathercue.com/

CAMPTOWN CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1870

ADDITONAL NAMES: None

AFFILIATION(S): None

HISTORY:

Camptown Cemetery was the earliest black cemetery in Brenham, Texas. Although nearly lapsed into obscurity in the early years of the 21st century, it has been restored and received State Historic Cemetery status. Drawing on the names found there, it has become possible to reconstruct a greater understanding of the influence and reach of the surrounding black community post reconstruction of the community of Camptown.

BCN Contact Information:

Charles Swenson

Sahicurn@gmail.com

HOLLY OAK CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1800s

ADDITONAL NAMES: None

AFFILIATION(S): None

HISTORY:

Holly Oak is one of the oldest African American cemeteries in Rapides Parish, Louisiana. Data has shown that enslaved people were buried in this cemetery, dating back to the 1800s. The cemetery, which is located in Pineville, is regarded as the most historic Black cemetery in Central Louisiana. The Holly Oak cemetery is the burial ground for many important people that had a significant impact on the community. Occupations of those buried at Holly Oak included things such as doctors, soldiers, teachers, lawyers, and civil right leaders. It is rumored that there is a mass grave of African American WWII soldiers buried in the Holly Oak Cemetery, due to the Lee Street Riot. The riot that took place Jan. 10, 1942, on Lee Street in Alexandria.  

This cemetery has many, many sunken and lost burials, some under weeds, some under water, some hidden in brush and nearby woods & brush. Residents that live on Holly Oak Street, as well as members of local churches in the area, have been working together to try and restore the cemetery.  

BCN Contact Information:

Wanda Johnson

Wanda.johnson7477@yahoo.com

PINE STREET COLORED CEMETERY

FOUNDED: ca. 1860

ADDITONAL NAMES: None

AFFILIATION(S): None

HISTORY:

The Pine Street Colored Cemetery is a four-acre, 162-year-old cemetery that sits on the edge of downtown Gallipolis, Ohio. Many of those buried in the space were members of the John Gee African Methodist Episcopal Church, today known as the John Gee Black Historical Center. The center supervises the cemetery’s upkeep and includes its history in school tours and educational programming.

The Pine Street Colored Cemetery is important to both Gallipolis and Black American history because it houses prominent locals and the ancestors of many area residents. Laid to rest includes Leah Stewart, the first African American to live in Gallipolis; Phoebe Smith, who established the local Mutual Aid Society; and at least fifty-seven soldiers. Also buried is the namesake of the historical center and cemetery founder, John Gee. He was a wealthy Black carpenter and Gallipolis resident who donated the four acres to create a space for his newly-deceased wife, who was not allowed to reside in the all-White cemetery nearby. The Pine Street Colored Cemetery then became a place of rest for generations of Black Gallipolis locals and is today a culturally significant landmark.

BCN Contact Information:

Robin Payne

info@johngeeblackhistory.com

https://www.johngeeblackhistory.com/

LINCOLN CEMETERY — HARRISBURG

FOUNDED: 1877

ADDITONAL NAMES: Wesleyan AME Church Cemetery, Harris Free Cemetery, African Burial Grounds

AFFILIATION(S):

• Friends of Lebanon Cemetery

HISTORY:

Lincoln Cemetery is Harrisburg’s oldest surviving Black Cemetery. The ground was consecrated, outside of the city limits, in November of 1877 on a plot of land that lies on the border of what is now the Town of Penbrook and Susquehanna Township in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania.

Although the first burial at Lincoln Cemetery did not occur until 1877, most of the Black People who died in Harrisburg, since the 1700s are also buried here. They had to be disinterred from the earlier Black Cemeteries, located within city limits, when it became illegal to bury Black People within them.

Lincoln Cemetery is the final resting place of over 90 Black Civil War Veterans (and counting), and hundreds of veterans of later wars. Almost all of Harrisburg's early black leaders are buried in Lincoln Cemetery. Including former slaves, leaders in the Underground Railroad, politicians, doctors, lawyers, the first Black Superintendent of schools, journalists, musicians, college professors, countless reverends, entrepreneurs, firefighters, schoolteachers, policemen, civil rights activists, and founding members of our Nation’s most prominent Black Fraternal Orders.

Lincoln Cemetery is clearly a significant cultural heritage resource for the region. But Harrisburg's unique geographical position, also made it a transportation hub, a crossroads and waypoint for Americans migrating North, South, and West during the 1800s. So, Lincoln Cemetery is also Nationally significant---A source of unexplored and untapped stories and data about the Black Family, social networks and community in the 18th-20th centuries, it is an untapped well in an individual's quest to break the 1870 brick wall and has the ability to galvanize all people to a deeper understanding of the importance and significant role Black People had in the building of our nation.

BCN Contact Information:

SOAL: Saving Our Ancestors' Legacy

soal@lincolncemetery.org

https://friendsoflebanoncemetery.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

WIMAUMA MEMORIAL CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1906 (Legal) but dates back to 1860 - 80’s

ADDITONAL NAMES: None

AFFILIATION(S): None

HISTORY:

The First Baptist Missionary Church and Cemetery was established in 1878, just thirteen short years after the abolishment of slavery in 1865. Prior to its official establishment, the cemetery was primarily a potter’s fields for the enslaved field workers and railroad workers. We know this because, at the time of its official establishment, there was around 129+ existing graves. Some of these cemetery residents die natural deaths, some from sickness, some by horrible and vicious means inflicted by racists individuals and groups. These neglected African Americans includes United States Military Veterans, ordinary men, women and children who deserve to be honored and their final resting places should be protected from modern day development expansions encroaching in this immediate area. The Church changed its name to First Prospect Missionary Baptist Church and the Cemetery, and the cemetery is now known as the Wimauma Cemetery. This name will be changed to the Wimauma Heritage Cemetery in July, 2022. Descendent of these hard-working men and women still lives in the Wimauma community and, as their ancestors, they are also laid to rest in this historic and holy cemetery grounds.

BCN Contact Information:

Rev. Dr. Doris Barron-Shell

barron8933@icloud.com

OAK TREE UNION COLORED CEMETERY OF TAYLORVILLE (AKA OLD GROVELAND CEMETERY)

FOUNDED: Between 1895-1900

ADDITONAL NAMES: Old Groveland Cemetery

AFFILIATION(S): None

HISTORY:

This African American Cemetery is believed to have been established between 1895 and 1900, which is around the time the first African Americans came to the Groveland (Taylorville) area to work the citrus groves, turpentine stills, lumber industry and has been abandoned for approximately 70 years. The original name of the cemetery is “Oak Tree Union Colored Cemetery of Taylorville” and is also known locally as “Old Groveland Cemetery”, as the City of Taylorville changed its name to Groveland in 1922. Burials are believed to have stopped sometime in 1951 and it is also believed that there may be 70 or more black residents interred in this 1 ¼ acre site. Several of the headstones that could be found our WWI Veterans who were buried here in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Several of those interred were also members of the Knights of Pythias, an organization dedicated to peace and the belief that any two men who believe in a Supreme Being, can live together in peace and harmony.

Prior to 1922, when Groveland was known as Taylorville, African Americans contributed to the area’s economic wealth by harvesting citrus and turpentine. During this time, the turpentine and lumber industries grew extensively thanks to the arduous work of many African Americans who were unable to find work in surrounding areas due to racial discrimination. Around 1899, Groveland business icon, Elliot Edge brought African American families to the City, who heavily supported Groveland’s economy through their labor in these industries and whose resilience would help them uphold Groveland’s economy during the Great Depression in the 1920s. Among Edge’s notable African American workers are the Gadsden’s, Blue’s, and Hart families, whose contributions to Taylorville (Groveland) have been memorialized in the form of city streets named after them. Our cemetery project team has found grave markers that lead us to believe these historical individuals and possibly their descendants may have been interred there. Former Groveland Councilman John Griffin’s uncle, Samuel Griffin, a World War I veteran, is buried in this cemetery.

BCN Contact Information:

Kevin Carroll

kevin.carroll@groveland-fl.gov