NEW HOPE CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1800s

ADDITONAL NAMES: New Hope Church Cemetery, New Hope Methodist Church Cemetery

AFFILIATION(S): N/A

HISTORY:

New Hope Methodist Church was established between 1885 and 1890 by the Black congregants of Franklin United Methodist Church. According to the late Barbara McRae, a local historian, the trustees of New Hope Methodist Church officially acquired the land tract for the cemetery in 1893. However, New Hope Cemetery was likely used prior to the establishment of the church. Usage of the cemetery ceased in the 1940s, when New Hope Methodist Church membership declined, and the church fell into disrepair. The church’s building, which is no longer standing, is said to have been burned or torn down in the late 1960s. The cemetery was in a poor condition since at least 1938, when a Works Progress Administration (WPA) worker noted that the cemetery’s condition was “very bad.” The WPA survey of the cemetery notes the four headstones that were readable at the time, which included: Lizzie Dickey, Ada Greenwood, Mollie Holden, and Jency McAfee. There is a total of 7 marked and at least 34 unmarked graves in the cemetery. Death certificates from 1909 onwards verify that at least 40 individuals were buried in the cemetery.

The cemetery is located at the top of a steep hill, which overlooks land that served as a community to a number of African American families during that time period. The last known member of New Hope Methodist Church, Josephine Greenwood Burgess, recalled that the road for carrying bodies into the cemetery eventually washed out, making the last funerals and maintenance of the cemetery difficult. Ms. Josephine Burgess passed away in 2014.

The cemetery was restored by Andrew Baldwin as part of an Eagle Scout project in 2013. He presented his proposal to clean up the cemetery to the Macon County Board of Commissioners, who agreed to support his project. They declared the cemetery “public and abandoned.” Baldwin gathered a group of volunteers, including students and a faculty member from Western Carolina University. The county contracted with a company to conduct a survey of the cemetery. As a result of Baldwin’s work, a sign was placed at the cemetery in March 2013. Later that year, the Macon County Cemetery Board of Trustees was also established to oversee maintenance of New Hope Cemetery and other abandoned cemeteries in Macon County.

BCN Contact Information:

Olivia Dorsey

hey@oliviapeacock.com

WOODLAWN CEMETERY

FOUNDED: At least since 1928

ADDITONAL NAMES: N/A

AFFILIATION(S):

• NC Historic Cemetery Registry

HISTORY:

This cemetery is located in historic West Southern Pines. In 1923, West Southern Pines was one of the first incorporated Black Townships in NC. It is on a parcel contiguous to the site of the West Southern Pines Rosenwald School that was built in 1924. The Rosenwald School building is no longer in existence.

It was made available by the Buchan Family in mid-1960’s. The West Southern Pines Churches used this cemetery to bury the members of their church.

Woodlawn Cemetery is listed on the NC Historic Black Cemetery Registry file #31MR446.

BCN Contact Information:

Southern Pines Land & Housing Trust

info@splandandhousingtrust.org

www.splandandhousingtrust.org

STRIEBY CONGREGATIONAL UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1880

ADDITONAL NAMES: N/A

AFFILIATION(S): N/A

HISTORY:

Strieby was founded by the Rev Islay Walden, who was visually impaired, grew up enslaved in the community. After emancipation, he received his teaching degree from Howard University in 1876, during which time he wrote his fist book of poems, “Miscellaneous Poems, Which the Author Desires to Dedicate to the Cause of Education and Humanity” and founded a Sabbath School. Subsequently he attended and graduated from the New Brunswick Theological Seminary, where he wrote a second book of poems, “Walden’s Sacred Poems with a Sketch of His Life,” and established another school called the Student Mission. He was ordained in 1879 and returned to Randolph County, NC, under the auspices of the American Missionary Association. He purchased 6 acres in southwestern Randolph on which he built both a church and a school and the cemetery, first called Promised Land Church and Academy. The school and church became important centers of African American life. In 1883, Walden petitioned for and was appointed postmaster of a community post office, named Strieby. The church, school, and cemetery were subsequently renamed Strieby. The school continued until the late 1920s when it was merged with another county African American school. A new church building was built in 1972 after the original was condemned. Descendants of the founders continue to bury family members in the cemetery. Rev. Islay Walden died in 1884 and is buried in the cemetery. Vella Lassiter, a community member, graduate of the school, teacher, and trustee, who won a landmark civil rights case in 1937 and affirmed by the state Supreme Court in 1939, is also buried in the cemetery.

In 2014, the site was named a Randolph County Cultural Heritage Site, by the county Historic Preservation and Landmark Commission. In 2021, the site was named a Literary Landmark by United for Libraries, in honor of the the Rev. Islay Walden, “Blind Poet of North Carolina.”

BCN Contact Information:

Margo Lee Williams

margolw@gmail.com

HAROLD AVENUE CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1808

ADDITONAL NAMES: Jackson Cemetery

AFFILIATION(S): N/A

HISTORY:

The Harold Avenue Cemetery, circa 1808, is also known as the Black Jackson Cemetery. Located west of Old Mill Road between Lawrence Place and Harold Avenue in Wantagh is a wooded area that was used as a cemetery. The Harold Avenue burial lot was used by the descendants of the Jackson family slaves prior to 1862, the date of the first recorded burial in the Old Burial Ground on Oakfield Avenue in Wantagh.

Thomas Jackson, a white Revolutionary War veteran, deeded the property to Jeffrey Jackson, who was black, in 1808. It is probable that Jeffrey Jackson was a freed slave.

Slavery in this area had lost favor soon after the Revolutionary War and was not generally practiced. Many of the area's white families were Quakers and were opposed to slavery. The former slave owners often gave land to their freed slaves for their own farms. In many cases, the grateful freed slaves took the surnames of their former masters.

BCN Contact Information:

The Wantagh Preservation Society

wantaghmuseum@gmail.com

516-826-8767

https://nyheritage.org/organizations/wantagh-preservation-society

WOODLAWN CEMETERY

FOUNDED: May 13,1895

ADDITONAL NAMES: N/A

AFFILIATION(S): N/A

HISTORY:

Woodlawn Cemetery is a historic cemetery in the Benning Ridge neighborhood of Washington, D.C., in the United States. The 22.5-acre (91,000 m2) cemetery contains approximately 36,000 burials, nearly all of them African Americans. The cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places on December 20, 1996.Woodlawn Cemetery was founded because of a crisis among the black burying grounds. Graceland Cemetery, founded in 1871 on the edge of the Federal City, was rapidly engulfed by residential development. By the early 1890s, the decomposition of bodies in the partially filled cemetery was polluting the nearby water supply and creating a health hazard. The Commissioners of the District of Columbia (the city's government) pressed for the closure of Graceland to accommodate the need for housing. With Graceland on the verge of closing, a number of white citizens decided that a new burial ground, much farther from any development, was needed. A portion of which was the site of the American Civil War's Fort Chaplin Burial plots were quickly laid out, and Woodlawn Cemetery opened on May 13, 1895. Between May 14, 1895, and October 7, 1898, nearly 6,000 sets of remains were transferred from Graceland Cemetery to several mass graves at Woodlawn Cemetery. Over the years, the closure of smaller churchyard cemeteries in the Federal City as well as some large burying grounds resulted in more mass graves. The last major transfer occurred from 1939 to 1940, when 139 full and partial sets of remains were relocated to Woodlawn. In all a dozen mass graves eventually came to exist at Woodlawn Cemetery. Woodlawn was an integrated cemetery, in that it accepted burials of both whites and blacks. Internally, however, it was segregated, with Caucasians being buried in a whites-only section.

As the cemetery filled and space for burial became available in desegregated cemeteries, income from the sale of burial plots dropped significantly. White burials at Woodlawn, once a significant source of income, plummeted after 1912. Lacking a perpetual care trust, the cemetery fell into disrepair. The last burial was made there about 1969,with the total number of dead at the cemetery about 36,000.

The Washington DC Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. has had a relationship with Woodlawn Cemetery since 2018, when we discovered that one of our Founders, Mary Edna Brown Coleman, was buried there. We had a vested interest in the preservation of the cemetery. In 2022, we discovered that there were two Founders of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Inc., Marjorie Hill and Sarah Merriwether Nutter, also buried at Woodlawn, so we invited Xi Omega Chapter of AKA to join us in collaboration, in assuring that the sacred grounds of Woodlawn Cemetery would always exist.

It is our desire to build community awareness of the many needs of the cemetery, while assisting the volunteers with tasks identified. Our organizations, therefore formed the Woodlawn Collaborative Project to make a difference in this sacred burial space of our ancestors.

BCN Contact Information:

Tamara Phelps

granddeltadime@gmail.com

https://woodlawndc.org/

WOODLAWN CEMETERY

FOUNDED: 1917

ADDITONAL NAMES: N/A

AFFILIATION(S): N/A

HISTORY:

Opened in 1917, during the Jim Crow era in the capital of the confederacy, Woodland's roads and front gate were built by local African American contractors. In 1916 when the cemetery was under construction, the pond was still in use as indicated by the newspaper advertisement. Families would picnic by the pond and paddle boat in it. Mitchell’s desire was to create a dignified and respectful place for African American families to come and pay homage to their deceased family members. Mitchel named the roads at Woodland after African American heroes of that era as a counter to the erection of the confederate statues on Monument Ave. Not only are the elite of Richmond’s black community buried here but Woodland has served as a dignified resting place for our US veterans of the Spanish-American War, World War I and II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War. Woodland Cemetery is a testament to the perseverance, dignity, and the desires of the African American community to be respected. John Mitchell was acutely aware of these feelings and his vision provided a way for respect to be shown with pride.

The significance of this cemetery is that it is evidence of a history that will be lost if we do not preserve it. Our children will grow up ignorant of the accomplishments and contributions of a whole segment of people who greatly contributed to the development of the City of Richmond. Considering the criticism and removal of African American history from our schools, Woodland will be a counter to an unbalanced history that is taught today by referencing the true history of the struggles and accomplishments of African Americans. Without Woodland’s historical contribution our children will not only grow up unaware of their history and leaving many to feel insignificant and marginalized.

BCN Contact Information:

Marvin Harris

mharris@mapinv.com

https://www.woodlandrestorationfoundation.org/

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