Some of the directions are vague or give directions relative to landowner's properties- properties that have no doubt changed hands since this book was written. I'll supplement sketchy directions wherever I can, but I doubt I'll be able to for all of them. If you have visited any of these burial grounds and can provide better directions or additional information, I'd be grateful. Also, if you know of any burials that are not on this list, feel free to let me know and I'll add them. I love cemeteries, so I'll be making pilgrimages to as many of these sites as possible. If you're in town and interested, come with me! I'd love company! (By the way, the age of these graveyards range from the early 1800s to the 1920s.)
Also, if you see a set of cryptic numbers and letters, that's a reference to the township in which the site is located. Look at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~altuscal/townships.html to understand it better.
- Sand Mountain Meeting House. 2 miles south of Gilgal Baptist on Bear Creek Rd.
- Phifer. Was once the Old Bush Place, 3/4 miles south of Gilgal Baptist on Bear Creek Rd. It seems to have been destroyed.
- Mrs. Henry Smith's Farm. All I have for this is Fayette Highway.
- Old Center. Hull, AL. My grandfather owns land in Hull, so I'll see if he knows anything about it.
- Bealle. Fosters, 1820s. Take Highway 7 to Sylvan Loop Rd. Continue on Sylvan Loop for about .88 miles.
- Thompson. Off Clements Rd. in Cottondale, 1850s.
- On Buttermilk Rd. 1.5 miles south of Cottondale. Left side of road.
- On Buttermilk Rd. The old Pearson Farm.
- Old Lucius Place. 1 1/2 miles west of Wesley Chapel. Wesley Chapel (and its graveyard) are are Gainesville Rd. in Ralph.
- Old Bethel. In Ralph. Exit Hwy 43 onto Ralph Loop Rd, then onto Bethel Church Rd.
- Bryce Hospital. There are five Bryce cemeteries spanning from antebellum to modern times. The first is bisected by Jack Warner Pkwy, due west of Woolsey Finnell Bridge. The section across the street is harder to access. Cemeteries 2, 3, and 4 are all grouped together, about 1/3 east of the bridge on the right side of the road. I highly recommend exploring here, though be discreet about it.
- Mr. T. Sammie Walker's Farm, in Ralph.
- Old Robertson (now Lewis) Place. Off Old US11, Fosters.
- Boykins Home. Take Gainesville Rd, then Grants Creek Church Rd, in Fosters. Turn just before Myrtlewood Elementary.
- Old Foster Place. Across old US11 from Fosters Post Office.
- Old Northport (Robertson). Across from a National Guard Armory on 26th Ave, Northport.
It's getting pretty late and this list is getting pretty long. I'll finish it tomorrow. Or, later today, rather. Goodnight, all!
True story: somewhere (maybe it's in Bibb County) in a cemetery with "Hurricane" in it ("Big Hurricane Cemetery"? "Little Hurricane Cemetery"?) Jackson has an ancestor buried who was an Indian princess. Okay, let's be PC--she was a Native American. Seriously, we're totally talking Disney movie here. She was something like the chief's daughter, fell in love with white man...you do the math. And she's buried somewhere in Bibb County. His aunt, Virginia (family storyteller & historian), told us the story all about it before she died in 2003 and I so wish we'd written it down so we could have kept it straight. But, alas, we were young and stupid.
ReplyDeleteThat is so cool! I'll do some digging and see if I can find it. Figuratively, of course, because literally digging would be a felony.
ReplyDeleteMy family "has" a cemetery in North Alabama, on my mother's mother's mother's side, I think because of my mother's mother's mother's either husband or father building the church there. Some of the plots date to the mid-to-late 1800s, though I'm not really sure how old the church is. If you'd like, I might be able to get more information on it from my mother.
ReplyDelete