by Leslie Lytle, Messenger Staff Writer

True. This is an uncanny story, bordering on the unbelievable. But it is not a Halloween story. It is the story of the 148 unmarked graves in the University Cemetery. A chunk of common field stone shows the location of 16 of those graves. But nothing whatsoever indicates beneath the soil are the graves where 132 more unnamed loved ones were laid to rest. That will change on Sunday, Oct. 18. Bronze stakes adorned with a dogwood blossom will mark the locations of each of the 148 unmarked graves in the former Black cemetery, honoring the African American residents who chiseled the stone, planed the lumber, tended the gardens and washed the clothes and children of the University founders and educators, the graves of people who were the engine that kept the University chugging along.

“Join us in placing the spikes. This is an inclusive community event unlike any I can think of in Sewanee’s past,” said Woody Register, Director of the Roberson Project on Slavery, Race, and Reconciliation. The ceremony begins at 2:30 p.m. Arriving at this milestone in Sewanee’s history has been a four-year journey.

In 2022, the Roberson Project commissioned UTK archaeologists Katherine Parker and Jordan Schaefer to perform a ground-penetrating-radar scan of the historic Black burial ground, a 1.3-acre tract bounded on the east by Kennerly Road and on the west by the historic University Cemetery, which it became part of in 1965.

“We knew before we started the GPR survey that we would find graves,” Register said. “But we never thought there would be anywhere near this many.”

The researchers found 156 graves marked with inscribed stones. But who are the people in the 148 unmarked graves the scan discovered?

“Our archival research has been unable to identify any of the persons in the graves,” Register conceded, “but we are confident that their descendants can be found in Black church communities and cemeteries throughout Franklin County today.”

The Messenger spoke with three longtime members of the Sewanee African American community whose families have deep roots in the town’s history. Asked what they thought when they learned about the unmarked graves in the Black cemetery discovered by the scan, all three replied, “We knew.”

But the number of unmarked graves surprised James Burnett, a pillar of the Sewanee African American community for over 60 years. “That’s a lot to get lost,” Burnett said. “I know quite a few people with family there.”

What surprised Evelyn Patton was the broken headstone found in the Kirby-Smith grave site in the white cemetery inscribed with the words, “OUR MAMMY. February 27, 1879.” The headstone marks the grave of Mahala Ward, the Kirby-Smith family’s Black nurse and caregiver. Mahala Ward is the only known Black person buried in the white cemetery.

Carl Hill has family in marked graves in the Black cemetery, and speculates he likely has family in unmarked graves as well. “My granddaddy’s daddy and mother are there. Willie Six’s grandson was my granddaddy.” Legendary Sewanee athletic trainer Willie “Six” Sims, likewise, has an inscribed headstone in the Black cemetery.

“Willie Six’s parents may well be among those in the unmarked graves,” Hill said. “I knew there were some graves that were marked where the sandstone corroded away over time. I didn’t know there were that many.”

“People who kept records of the cemetery had a map of which sections had people in them and which didn’t,” Hill explained. But the maps did not include names.

“We tried to use paperwork and records to match the unmarked graves with names,” Patton said. “It was just too hard.”

Where graves are located and who is buried where is fairly easy to keep track of when there are inscribed headstones. But the picture of a cemetery looks different when families with loved ones there cannot afford costly granite headstones and graves are marked with a wooden cross or a name scratched with a pottery shard in a piece of sandstone that crumbles into dust in just a few years’ time.

“The historic Black graveyard appears to be under-used and open spaces,” Register observed, “but there are almost as many lost and invisible graves there as there are marked and named graves. It’s a landscape of hidden histories.”

Burnett, Patton, and Hill all served on the committee tasked with deciding how to commemorate the unmarked graves. Artists Greg Pond and Allie Cahoon and Sewanee students joined in the collaboration.

The group brainstormed ideas, with suggestions including the state flag, a state marker, and the state flower. One day Pond brought a sketch of a dogwood blossom drawn by his daughter Adeline. “Dogwoods were always blooming when we were kids walking through the cemetery,” Patton said. The group seized on the idea. Sculptor Pond took the design to the final level, with the life-size bronze blossoms mounted on a bronze stake hand-forged in the University foundry. The stakes inserted in the ground with the blossoms at ground level will allow for easy grounds maintenance and deter theft.

GIS instructor Chris Van de Ven and University archaeologist Brian McCray geo-located the graves for the ceremony marking each with a flag soon to be replaced by a dogwood blossom.

There is perhaps synchronicity in that legend has it Christ’s cross was made from the wood of a dogwood tree.

“The ceremony reflects an extraordinary collaboration of people from across our community: students, faculty members, University staff, and, above all, the people with deep and abiding roots in the St. Mark’s neighborhood,” said Register. “To quote Tiana Clark, whose poem we commissioned for the ceremony, on Oct. 18, all of us will gather, at long last, to ‘locate, honor, grieve, and love the dead.’”

Honor the truth by attending, and join in placing the dogwood blossoms on unmarked graves as a testimony to the past and testimony to hope for the future.