Lord Save Me From Poor Researchers!

Following up on the prior post.

A little background on old Br'er. By trade and natural inclination I am an Analyst. This manifests itself many ways, not the least of which is an absolute loathing of Bad Data. It grates on my soul much the same way that everyone reacts to fingernails scratching over a blackboard.

Imagine how I developed a facial tic the more I delved into Mount Zion Baptist Church Cemetery and the burials therein. Though I probably should refer to Mount Zion Baptist Church Cemeteries, Turns out there are three separate physical cemeteries within about two miles of each other, and four separate recorded cemeteries in Find A Grave.

Digging into the data from multiple sources, I think I have sussed out the real story.

Some time in the 1800s a church named Mount Zion was founded under the Baptist faith. I say only in the 1800s because without church records (which I am trying to see if any exist) I cannot be more specific. As with all things in that era, the church is segregated. It was a Black Church. And as such was almost certainly founded by recently freed slaves.

Like all churches, parishioners were sometimes buried on church grounds creating a cemetery. The earliest burial (based on a carved and dated headstone) was Jane McWhorter born 1829 and died August of 1890. I have searched what surviving records I can find and Jane does not appear before 1870. Looking at all the facts, birth year, race, location, first record in 1870, it is an inescapable conclusion that Jane was born into slavery. Thus I am lead to the theory that Mount Zion was established either as a church for slaves prior to emancipation (rather unlikely as such churches were either illegal or unsupported by the community) or by newly freed slaves after emancipation (by far the more likely case). And with about 150+ clear - if unmarked - graves obvious in the cemetery, it is entirely possible that burials started long before Jane McWhorter (NB: McWhorter is the name of a White family noted in the area. The extended members of this family are recorded as having a relatively large number of slaves. It is probably that Jane, like so many other freed slaves, adopted the surname name of her former master when the need for a surname arose post emancipation.) 

One last factor to consider in dating the cemetery is that it is located directly across the road from the McWhorter Family Cemetery. Burials there predate those in Mount Zion by decades. The earliest dated marker in the McWhorter cemetery contemporaneous to the person's burial (as opposed to a stone place long after the person was buried) dates from 1817. So this lends some weight to the argument that Mount Zion, or at least the cemetery, could easily date to many years before 1890 and have been established as a slave cemetery, and only later, after emancipation, have a church associated with it. Though I cannot conclusively prove it, I tend to think this was the case.

The last burial with a solidly established date in this location dates to 1947.

For reasons I have not yet uncovered, this site was not on the county maps in 1955. The name was absolutely Mount Zion as this is given on death certificates and death/obituary notices for marked burials in the cemetery. 

This cemetery is listed as "Unidentified" in Find A Grave and a list of cemeteries published by the County Historical Society. I am working to get this misnaming corrected.

Some time in the 1900s Mount Zion relocated about a half mile away and started a new cemetery (Mount Zion Baptist Church Cemetery Main in Find A Grave). Maps and records for this location already bear the name Mount Zion Baptist Church. This is where the bad research and data REALLY kicks in.

First off, someone has created a duplicate cemetery (Mount Zion Baptist Church Cemetery North) for this location in Find A Grave. The North location (GPS) is about 50 yards separate from the original Main cemetery. So two church cemeteries with almost identical names about 50 yards away from each other. 

Sloppy research and lazy people! Arrgh! 

Worse, there are only 6 memorials in it. Two are duplicates for existing memorials in the "unidentified" Mount Zion cemetery I described about. And two or three are duplicates for existing memorials in the Main cemetery.

Are people incapable of checking to see if something exists before they create NEW records? 

Well, I have a request to merge these two cemeteries in Find A Grave, and requests to merge the duplicates. Though it is clear that there is a lot more work to do once these initial updates are complete.

Digging into the Main location memorials, there are some 16 or 17 that clearly belong to the original "Unidentified" cemetery. Their death dates are from the 1930s or earlier (and a few up to 1947, just prior to the last identified burial in the "Unidentified" cemetery that may belong there as well), long before the church moved to this location. Once all the pending updates are processed I will submit updates to these to have them moved to the correct cemetery. They will account for some of the unmarked, unidentified graves there.

I am more understanding of these errors. With the correct location not identified as Mount Zion, they were created in what appeared to be the correct Mount Zion cemetery.

Adding to the joy of all this research, Mount Zion relocated to a third location at some point between 1970 and 1981. Without those church records I can't be more specific. I can confirm from aerial photography that the new church did not exist as of the 1970 aerial photographs and did exist as of the 1981 aerial photographs.

And yes, a third cemetery was established. The first marked burial there dates to 1983 (there could be some from earlier - I haven't checked on-site yet). Naturally there are a couple of memorials recorded here that could not possibly be buried here. One dates to 1923, the other to 1937. Nice trick to be buried in a church cemetery some 50 years or so before the church was located there. 

So I can only believe that these two are also in the "Unidentified" cemetery. These, too, are on the "to be corrected" list. 

I am trying to get in contact with the church to see if they can confirm my deductions. I am also trying to contact the funeral homes in the wider area that I can identify as handling burials in these cemeteries. Perhaps they have surviving records of who is buried in each cemetery. Or even better, maps of each cemetery showing who is in each grave.

Not holding my breath on that happening. 

But I aim to give it a shot.

A Multiphase Mystery

I hate not knowing. This has led to much grief in my life. So when I read about and "unidentified" cemetery recently I should have known that it would not bode well for me.

At least the weather was in my favor. Not too hot, not too cold, and no rain for over a week so no mud. Briars and brambles, on the other hand, lay in wait for me.

Even with knowing the almost exact spot of the cemetery it takes a few minutes of searching coupled with a LOT of muttered obscenities caused by the brush (and a few nasty spiderwebs) to locate the first of several headstones. And a deer stand. Obviously this has long since ceased being used as farmland.

It doesn't take long to realize this is clearly an African-American cemetery. If you have spent any amount of time in such cemeteries in the Southern United States then you will recognize certain patterns and traits. I do not know the reasons for these though I can imagine many. All with equally strong logic. Some of the more common traits are:

• Few, if any, commercially produced headstones or monuments.
• A significant number of graves marked only with 'temporary' grave markers of various forms. Those from the early to mid 1900s are often a paper form behind a glass plate (at least that is how they began - few are even remotely intact today). These transitioned into templates with individual metal letters inserted into lines much like type from typesetting.
• Many graves with concrete slabs on top. Mostly these are uninscribed or unadorned save the few with hand etched names.
• Concrete headstones created by setting individual inverted characters in a form (picture setting individual type for printing, but on a larger format and using poured concrete instead of paper and ink.)
• Iridescent glass jug shards atop a headstone or the grave. 
• Few dates for births.

This site has all of these indicators. And there are even a couple of the paper cards surviving in large part in their original frames!

I would include an image of the sunken graves, but frankly with all the leaves and pine straw on the ground the photos do not convey reality very well.

As I systematically make my way around the area I notice that there is a clear and obvious pattern to the graves. This looks almost as formally laid out as a modern cemetery. And it is much larger than the average abandoned cemetery in the wider area from the same era. There are almost 50 marked or identified graves and probably at least 150 obvious unmarked graves! It is far out in the boondocks (Consider this: The area is rural and remote today. Imagine how remote it was a century or more ago!) abutting a gravel road, and across from a small and still maintained family cemetery.

Several tumblers start falling into place. First, the road and the family cemetery bear the same name: McWhorter. It is clear from the dates, monuments and inscriptions in the family cemetery that this is a White family. Second, there are a couple of markers in the unidentified cemetery with the same McWhorter, one for a person born in 1829. Third, there are a over a dozen marked graves for individuals born prior to 1865 with most dating to the 1840s and 1850s.

I think this may well have started out as a slave cemetery. I need to do more research to be certain, but it is a strong possibility. To an almost certainty these Black people born before 1865 were born into slavery. Remember that as chattel, slaves had no surnames. Those were only adopted after emancipation. And it was not uncommon for newly freed slaves to adopt the surname of their former masters. Even if the cemetery was not originally for slaves, some of the early burials in it were almost certainly former slaves. The names coupled with the birth years, the race, and the location make any other reading of the facts highly unlikely.

But burials continued well into the 1940s (possibly the 1950s). Surely there is a recorded name for the cemetery somewhere. I make notes of the various funeral homes evident from the various markers and start searching. Some of the businesses appear to have closed operations. But at least two are still in business. A brief call to the first and I learn all their records that old were transferred to storage and lost in a fire. The second call is more promising. They have the records going WAY back and ask that I drop an email asking for the data and say they will be happy to look into it. 

Email sent immediately asking for cemetery name, list of interments, and/or any maps they may have of the site.

But my research doesn't stop there! I manage to find at least one death certificate and one obituary for persons with markers in the cemetery where the cemetery listed is "Mt Zion".

Interesting. There is another cemetery less than half a mile away recorded as "Mt Zion Baptist Church". This is not a coincidence and worthy of a visit!.

Ordinarily I would give links to Find A Grave for these cemeteries. But as I am strongly considering submitting updates to Find A Grave to change their names and descriptions, doing so right now would be unwise. The links would become invalid if I submit the changes. If you want to find them as of the time this is published then search for  'Unidentified' or 'Mount Zion Baptist Church Cemetery Main ' as the cemetery name and Oglethope County, Georgia as the location. Unidentified is approximately a half mile NNE of Mt Zion with the McWhorter Cemetery being just across the road from Unidentified. That should be sufficient detail to allow you to find these locations if you really want to.

Oh, to add to the fun, someone has created yet another Mt Zion cemetery almost in the exact spot as the 'Main' cemetery and added 6 memorials to it. 2 of those are clear duplicates of marked graves in the "Unidentified", two should also be there based on death dates, and the remaining two obviously belong in the "Main" cemetery. Yes, I am working to get all that cleared up.

Now assuming for the moment that this Unidentified site was indeed the Mt Zion Baptist Church site once upon a time it is not an unreasonable hypothesis that the church relocated at some point in the mid 1900s with burials starting about the 1950s in the 'Main' site. 

A site visit finds that there are the remains of a church on the 'Main' site.

I think we can safely say that this place has seen better days.

The cemetery itself is at least semi-maintained, even if the old church is not. There are relatively resent flower placements and the grass is more or less cut recently. But, alas, there is no cell signal. So I set about photographing what markers there are. That takes some time. Find A Grave has about 150 entries and I know from experience that that is not a complete reckoning. (I ended up adding some enough memorials to bring the current count to 200! And I added photos to a LOT of those already existing).

Research upon returning to the warren revealed some important facts. Mainly that  the building is in fact a church, It appears on maps of the area as early as 1955 with the cemetery not apparent (though there could be graves under the cloud cover) named as Mt Zion Baptist Church.  

There is a last piece to the story I haven't shared yet. And it may prove to be the proverbial nail in the coffin!

I took a different route leaving this time. More unpaved back road driving that eventually returned me to paved roads. Basically I continued N-NE on McWhorter Rd until it terminated at the intersection of a paved road. From there I turned left (N-NW) back toward the main throughway, GA-77. Almost immediately I passed a small church. I could not help but note its name: Mt Zion Baptist Church! And it has a small cemetery (GROAN!)

Next item on the research list is to drop them a note and see what they can tell me of the church's history. I can't think that this is anything but this being the third location for the church over the past century and a half.

In The Moody

Almost missed this one. I knew from Find A Grave that it existed but had no photographs, so I made a mental note to stop and photograph it when I passed it (other excursions, other tales).

If anyone needed elegant proof that I am a determined, if not overly bright, bunny, this would be it. 

If you look VERY closely you will see the iron fencing enclosing the cemetery. All that vegetation? It is half vines and half Briars From Hell. We all know from the stories that old Br'er was "born and bred in the briar patch." But this one damned near killed me. When briar thorns reach the inch long stage and the vines are about a quarter inch thick even a rhino would be hard pressed to shrug them off.

I swear, if you hired Hollywood Effects Artists and Set Decorators you would be hard pressed to come up with anything as eerie and creepy as this spot. The only things missing are darkness and a fog machine.

Naturally in my abundant wisdom I had left all the tools behind. I did not expect to be pushing into any brush so saw no need to bring them on this excursion.

Dumbass, I. I could have used napalm on this stuff! Fortunately I did wear jeans, boots, and longer sleeves.. Between the vines grabbing my feet and the briars stretched taught across every possible path, it took me almost half and hour to merely reach the gate. Getting the photographs would prove to be an even greater challenge. Thankfully there were only eleven graves and several shared markers. That took another half hour to complete as I picked my painful way over, under, around, and through the barriers in order to get the photos.

Even then there were two that I could not actually reach due to a massive tree having collapsed on that area. Sadly there was considerable damage to the fencing. But miraculously neither stone was damaged. Though I would hazard a guess that unless some kind of heavy equipment is utilized, any efforts to remove it will result in it falling and crushing the markers. And leaving it untouched will probably have the same end result as the tree rots and give way.

In the end I did get all the photos. To be honest though, one of them is lousy. I could only determine whose it was based on the first name ending with an 's' and having already accounted for all the other graves. Ya gotta work with what you have.

Sad to see any cemetery so abandoned and derelict. I can only speculate that the family sold out and moved, or died off. That is still no excuse for the property owner not doing basic cleaning and maintenance.

M Day Is Approaching

Someone posted to a FaceBook group recently (I don't think it proper to name names as it could be considered a violation of rules if not propriety) about visiting an old cemetery very near The Warren. Specifically noted were the four graves of Patriots - men who served in the American Revolution. Being as how the whole cleaning headstones thing was current in my mind, this reminded me of the relatively pending Memorial Day.

Ok. So it is actually close to three months away. Sue me. In my mind that is right around the corner. And having been to the cemetery several times I am more than a little familiar with the condition of the headstones for these graves.

It is a nice day and I am in the mood. Plus, if I move now then there are about 2 and a half months remaining for the D/2 to do its thing before Memorial Day. So off I go, cleaning set in hand.

4 graves, but 5 stones as one individual managed to end up with two separate VA issued headstones.

Somehow Daniel Fones ended up with an old style upright marker AND a newer flat marker.

 As is obvious, these are seeing the effect of Mother Nature. After a wetting, spraying, soaking, scrubbing, and rinse. we have a wholly different situation!

Not to sound like I am channeling Yakov Smirnov, but 'What a difference!' The first three markers are pronouncedly better. Had I taken a wooden rod or opted to break out the toothbrush doubtless I could have achieved better results on the names and dates. Whitely came out the best. Fones was the least successful on this pass. His older marker looks like a damned Dalmatian. What you see is AFTER nearly wearing out a brush scrubbing. Well, wearing out my arm. Clearly that stuff is holding tight to the stone. The same thing is true for his flat marker. That green stuff is holding on for dear life! It will be interesting to see how the D/2 progresses over time. 

Something of a pattern there of late: See how this stuff reacts over the ensuing weeks and months.

Plus there will doubtless be some people wondering who did the cleaning. So I get to have some evil pleasure out of this, too!

The Experiment Continues!

Ok. This headstone cleaning stuff is hard work for OFFs (Old, Fat, Far...). Fortunately the day and weather conspired to make the odds in our favor. Cool, light breeze, overcast (sunny would have been nicer) - not bad.

First stop was Oakland Cemetery in Atlanta and the family plot with TW's paternal Great Grandparents and Great-Great Grandparents along with a few other kin including a distant cousin who passed as an infant. The Great-Greats have full size slab markers so those are going to be a pain. The infant has a slightly ornate memorial clearly from the late Victorian era. All the others are basic granite markers.

Walter and Margaret - the Great Grands

A Great-Grand Uncle

A 1st Cousin, Twice removed. This child posed a big question in TW's family as no one knew who she was until the extended family tree was traced. 

The 2nd Great-Grands. Winzor Campr purchased the original plot in the late 1800s.

Nothing has been done to any of these markers in the past 57 years for certain, and possibly never since they were originally installed. We know the 57 year period as the last interment was in 1963, and TW's grandmother and father were responsible for the lot since then and until her father formally transferred power of attorney for it to her a few years back.

So that was everything before we did any cleaning. For these stones we opted for the "fast results" approach: Wet, apply D/2, wait a bit, scrub, rinse.

We did do some work to expose the edges of the flat stones - remove any accumulated soil and such from the stone edges.

Working on the smaller stones was relatively easy. Those big ones, though, were a PAIN in the BACK! Watching videos for D/2 you see the people using pump sprayers to  apply it. We were not so keen to buy one just for this so opted to reserve the one sprayer on hand for water application and relegate the D/2 to a hand pump spray bottle. This was great for small stones. Not so much for the large ones. Not by far. But we made it work!

I will not lie. We were stunned by the results.

Surprise! Her name is Lillian, not Jillian as recorded in Find A Grave. Yes, a correction has been submitted.

Rather a nice improvement, if I do say. As with prior cleanings, these should continue to improve with time.

From there we took a long, meandering drive making a stop to update the GPS coordinates for one of her 2nd Great Uncles in Hollywood Cemetery. Turns out that she has a 1st Cousin Thrice Removed, daughter of that 2nd Great Uncle, and her husband and child in the cemetery as well!

Hollywood has multiple sections, only some of which are Perpetual Care. The older sections, one of which is where TW's kin rest, is sadly NOT in the area under care. These uncared for areas are several acres in total. And there are some substantial hills involved - seriously, I would NOT want to have to conduct a burial in some of these sections even when they were new and pristine. The only places I have ever seen that are comparably ugly are some of the hillside graves of Mother's family in West Virginia. Oy! Mountain Goats would love the place. Tragically there are sections where headstones, monuments, walls, and such are literally falling or fallen due to erosion.

No cleaning was planned here, Just GPS updates.

But I had to take some establishing photos.

One section of Hollywood that is separated from the others by a main road. These additional shots give an idea of how abandoned the non-perpetual care areas are.

If it isn't clear in the image, the grave in the center is seriously deeply sunken - as in 2 to 3 feet deep sunken!

A child's grave with a little stone girl holding a scroll giving the child's name and dates.

The headstone in the center is TW's 2nd Great Uncle and Aunt. We did not know about their daughter and husband at the time. They would logically be marked by the fallen stone to the left. The granddaughter's small marker is barely visible to the right of the center marker, between it and the wall, right in line with the sapling.

This is what remains of the road leading to some of the old, unmaintained sections.

Careful looking will see headstones and walls atop the hill, to the right of the middle tree.

The hills are festooned with graves. Most are barely visible.

 

Would but that I had the funds to restore the cemetery. This site alone would easily need over $100,000. Probably much more.

From there we headed over to Crest Lawn Cemetery for more of her people and a difference D/2 experiment.

This time we are trying the 'long game'. No scrubbing, no rinsing. Apply and leave.

We took the time to clear away the edges and brushed off the debris. After that we applied the D/2 and left. Let's give it a few weeks then go back and see what is to be seen.

And lastly, seeing as how we were a couple of hundred yards away, we stopped at Casey's Hill Cemetery and did the same experiment - spray and walk away - for a couple of MY distant kin. I didn't grab any photos so stole these from Find A Grave.

Now to let time and the elements do their thing.