ECU Researcher Uncovers 400 Graves In Abandoned African American Cemetery In City Of Ayden, Pitt County, NC.

By Nikki Hauser / WITN
Updated: Jun. 15, 2021 at 7:13 PM EDT

GREENVILLE, N.C. (WITN) - Off of Lee Street in Ayden sits an old, largely forgotten graveyard for African Americans.

The G.C. and Frances Hawley Museum
March 19, 2021 ·
African American Grave Site Disturbed By Subdivision Development

By Kassie Simmons | March 16, 2021 at 6:30 PM EDT - Updated March 16 at 7:50 PM

WILMINGTON, N.C. (WECT) - Work by developers ground to a halt after residents complained they were getting too close to a community cemetery last week, but for some graves it was too late.

Photograph: Barbee-Hargraves Historic Slave Cemetery located at 610 Greenwood Rd, Chapel Hill, NC.---"Slave" cemetery, now owned and maintained by the Town of Chapel Hill. Approximately 7 indistinct rows of depressions and stones, some 'true stones' very firmly set, probably 40 or 50 graves. 1790-1915.

Location and Land Ownership
The Barbee-Hargrave Cemetery is located near the Greenwood subdivision of Chapel Hill on land that once belonged to members of the Morgan, Hargrave, and Strowd families, early inhabitants of the area.

A moment in Durham: ‘We do not walk past without saying their names’

By Claire Kraemer / The 9th Street Journal
November 3, 2022

Image: Melva Rigel (top left) and Beverly Evans (center) lead a tour of Beechwood Cemetery.
Photos by Claire Kraemer — The 9th Street Journal

"Spotted in Enfield., Halifax County, North Carolina."

Image and narrative Source: African American Cemeteries of Tidewater Virginia and North Carolina fb page.
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Engraving on head stone:

FROM SLAVERY TO FREEDOM

Youths, Volunteers Uncover More Hidden Slave's Graves In Historic Black Cemetery In Madison, Rockingham County, NC
By Susie C. Spear- staff writer for RockinghamNow - May 29, 2019

Editor’s Note: This is the first installation of a series that will explore African-American history and forgotten historic black settlements in Rockingham County.

CEMETERIES, NO. 25: THE DEW FAMILY CEMETERY.
Photograph: The well-maintained Dew cemetery lies behind Repha Church of God on Weaver Road east of the city of Wilson, NC.
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*NOTE: We are shaing this from the FB Page & web site #BlackWideAwake - Documents of Historical and Genealogical Interest to Researchers of Wilson County, North Carolina's African-American Past---End NOTE
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The stones mark the graves of Raiford and Jency Short Dew, both born into slavery, and their descendants.
Raiford Dew Feb 18, 1838 Apr. 12, 1907

NOTE: This article is about the efforts to rescue, preserve, maintain and honor African American burial grounds. With profiles about Oberlin Cemetery in Raleigh, NC, and Durham’s Geer Cemetery,

Photograph: Ron Bartholomew and Wayne Tabron help re-erect and restore a headstone at the Geer Cemetery in Durham, NC on June 22, 2019. credit Bryan Cereijo

A Hope For Reclamation And Preservation At An Old African-American Cemetery In Durham
By Aandrew Carter June 22, 2019 06:30 PM
N&O

Durham, NC

Geer Cemetary
Durham, NC

Jesse Geer buried black residents from 1877 to 1944, when the city of Durham shut it down.

Lost to time: Overgrown Durham cemetery holds centuries of Black history
By Julie Wilson and Cameron Clinard
Sunday, February 03, 2019

Image and Annice Lunsford Glenn's life story by:
Friends of Geer Cemetery - Durham, NC
Monday, October 10, 2022

Today, we celebrate the birthday of Annice Lunsford Glenn.

She was born 201 years ago, and so much has changed as she would have known it. Some portions of her life are difficult to piece together and some we will probably never know.

"Today we remember Asbury Shaw, born July 19, 1888, to Romulus Shaw and Agnes Smith Shaw, the middle of three children.

Few records exist for him - only one census (1900, when he was attending school) and a 1903 newspaper article which cryptically refers to him as “a boy that no one seemed to know.”

Source for photograph and narrative: Friends of Geer Cemetery - Durham, NC

Charity Holman’s marble marker reminds us that today is the 181st anniversary of her birth. Though some of those enslaved at Stagville and further north in Person County shared this surname, we are unsure of her origins.

"Today we honor the life of Delia Jenkins, whose headstone tells us was born this day, June 10, in 1860. Delia was most likely born enslaved, to parents Wiley and Judy/Julia (Jordan) Mitchell. We first find record of their family after emancipation in the 1870 census living in rural Orange County.

Sourced from: Friends of Geer Cemetery - Durham, NC FB page

Ester Chavis was born on 15 June 1876. Her parents were Henry and Louisa (Day) Chavis.
The marriage bond for her parents was registered on 19 August 1866, in Granville County.
The bond indicated that both were free people of color. Members of Lousia Day's family are listed in the 1850 and 1860 census, another indication that they were free people of color.

Photograph and narrative sourced from: Friends of Geer Cemetery - Durham, NC

Fendell (Fendal) Banks was born on April 29, 1856. His entire family was enslaved on the Stagville Plantation in Orange County, NC. A place where over 900 enslaved people once lived.

Mr. James E. R. Lewis was born 160 years ago on November 22, 1861.

Shared from: Friends of Geer Cemetery in Durham, NC
Monday Nov. 22, 2021

James E. R. Lewis was born 160 years ago today according to his grave marker at Geer Cemetery.

Photograph and narrative source: Friends Of Geer Cemetery - Durham, NC.

“Gone but not forgotten,”
the family of Jeff Bass had inscribed on his headstone, a lamb symbolizing the loss of a sibling and son just turned 18. Jeff was one of 15 children born to Charlie and Sallie Miller Bass. Married in Franklin County in 1895, they raised their growing family on farmland near Youngsville before migrating to Oak Grove Township in eastern Durham County around 1920.

Shared From: Friends of Geer Cemetery - Durham, NC
October 12, 2021 5:34pm

According to her headstone, Katie Lillian Brown was born this day, October 12, in 1905. Sadly, she died at the age of only 8 in July of 1914, within a few days of her 4-year-old sister Jennette.

While no death certificates could be found for either sister, four other souls buried in Geer all died of Tuberculosis within a few weeks of them, suggesting a possible cause of death.

"Looking at Olivia Wills’ headstone in Geer Cemetery, it appears that she lost several children before her own early death.

A closer look indicates a different story.
Olivia Wills was born Oliva Tilley. In 1920, she married Edmund Wills. It was her second marriage.

Photographs and narrative source:
Friends of Geer Cemetery - Durham, NC

Rufus Purefoy was born on 10 January 1905. Shown here in a family collection photograph, likely taken in the latter 1920s, he was the youngest of six children born to Haywood and Sallie Ann Hedgepeth Purefoy.

Photograph and narrative sourced from: Friends of Geer Cemetery - Durham, NC

.#IrememberOurHistory®

Samuel Barbee was born on March 15, 1872, in Johnston County, North Carolina to Joseph and Louisa McCullers Barbee. By 1880, he was living in the small rural community of Pleasant Grove with his older brother Julius and two younger sisters, Clara and Martha. He was later joined by three more younger sisters: Emma, Pattie, and Viola.

Left image and narrative source: Friends of Geer Cemetery - Durham, NC

Right image: Sarah Yearby is in this photograph, published in
The Herald Sun 26 Apr 1953 page 34.

Yesterday’s (Sat. Feb. 18, 2023) find was the headstone for a young schoolgirl, Sarah Yearby. She was twelve years old when she died of typhoid fever.

GROVE HILL CEMETERY - is an African-American burial ground located at 2919 Fayetteville Street, Durham, NC

(We thank Denise Hester for letting us know about this unmarked, forgotten Black cemetery.)

Location - on private property at the rear of 2919 Fayetteville Street, just south of the Fayetteville Street School and just north of the old railway right-of-way.

"Old, abandoned African American cemeteries that were created before and after slavery are archives, not unlike museums,", says North Carolina Central University history professor Charles Johnson.

The John N. Smith Cemetery is the largest African American cemetery in Brunswick County where many notable Southport citizens were interned, including servicemen from every war since the Civil War.

The John N. Smith Cemetery in Southport NC,

(Source: WECT)-By WECT Staff
Published: Oct. 13, 2021 at 4:08 PM EDT

SOUTHPORT, N.C. (WECT) - A ribbon-cutting will be held for a new outdoor interpretive museum at the historic John N. Smith cemetery Saturday, October 16, at 10 a.m.

The outdoor museum will celebrate the history and contributions of the Black community in Southport and the surrounding area.

Mary Ann Galloway,, 1825 - 1944

Born a slave in the prominent Galloway family in the early days of the Cape Fear County, Mary Ann Galloway spent her girlhood and early womanhood over 40 years enslaved on a plantation in Smithville Township.

Uncovering the past: City to help fund survey of Old Oak Grove Cemetery

By Paul Nielsen Staff Writer /The Daily Advance-Nov 15, 2021

Elizabeth City officials have agreed to help fund an archaeological survey that will identify marked and unmarked graves at the city’s oldest cemetery for Black residents.

Will Historic Designation Protect This Black Cemetery From Beltline Construction?
By Richard Stradling /News & Observer
MAY 15, 2021 09:17 AM

RALEIGH
Deborah Lofton and Ethel LaVerne Patterson raked oak leaves and pine needles from the graves of their ancestors last weekend and gathered up bouquets of last year’s faded plastic flowers, replacing them with bright new ones they had bought that morning.

HENDERSONVILLE NC AFRICAN AMERICAN BURIALS

These records contain 2,462 funeral records of burials performed by Pilgrim Funeral Home during the period 1941 – 2001.

There may be some funeral records for other time periods which have not yet been received. Pilgrim Funeral Home was located in Hendersonville, Henderson County, North Carolina and normally handled African American burials.

Shared Post from: I'm from Washington NC and nobody told me this! I'm from Washington NC and nobody told me this!
11:20 pm July 8, 2021

"Washington has some amazing history and I am so grateful I get to share some of it on this page.

Left image: Photograph circa 1952- Rock Hill AME Church with John Henry Moore and grandson Larry Parks in the foreground.

The church began as a worshipping congregation around 1865. The size of the membership decreased after the construction of Lake James.

Image: "Behold the Lamb of God." The gravestone for Sheriff J. Harris.
Marble cutter Clarence B. Best’s work is well-represented in Saint Delight Cemetery, near Walstonburg, Greene County, North Carolina.
.
Image and narrative sourced from: Black Wide-Awake - Lisa Y. Henderson

Not forgotten: Unmarked graves of enslaved families discovered in woods of Johnston County. North Carolina

A swath of wooded land hides a few dozen graves marked with fallen and broken headstones -- and potentially hundreds of unmarked graves, some of which belonged to men and women once enslaved on that very land.

Image and narrative source: African American Cemeteries of Tidewater Virginia and North Carolina.

"Most of the known Veterans buried in Unity Cemetery have standard military-issue grave markers, but some are "hidden in plain sight." Such is the case of WWI Veteran PVT Columbus Faison, born in 1896 (per military records), Tarboro, NC.

Shared from: African American Cemeteries of Tidewater Virginia and North Carolina
Posted August 6, 2022

Rocky Mount, North Carolina: Received this photo of the newly installed gravestone for WWII veteran William E. Purvis, from his descendant.