Unearthing history: Researchers discover markers, items at local African American cemetery

After work began at the beginning of March to unearth the history of the Oak Grove Colored-William P. Johnston Memorial Cemetery, progress and discoveries were made last weekend by a professor and her students from Texas Tech University.

Dr. Tamra L. Walter, historical archaeologist and associate professor of archeology, along with graduate students worked Saturday, March 23 and Sunday, March 24 to scrape graves at the cemetery, which involves taking off a layer of topsoil to inspect the ground for potential graveshafts.

“That will allow us an idea of what to look for in unmarked areas to see where there might be the presence of graves,” she said. “We've also brought a metal detector, because from what some of the other descendants have told us, a lot of the markers were temporary metal markers.”

After performing the scraping on several graves and using the metal detector, the group was able to make a number of discoveries at the cemetery on Saturday and Sunday.

“What we didn't anticipate finding were some of the items placed on top of the grave (such as) glass (and) animal bone. There were some ceramics that were also found on top of two of the graves. That's pretty consistent with what we see in African American cemeteries around this time period, particularly prior to the 1950s, (such as in the) 20s and 30s, you see a lot of these kinds of items being placed,” she said. “We were pleasantly surprised to find those kinds of things (such as) parts of light fixtures and white plates that have some significance.”

The group was successful in using the metal detector to find multiple metal markers hidden underground.

“That will give us an indication of where people are possibly buried. (On) the metal detector, I think we've got about 40 hits that we had at the end of the day (Saturday),” she said. “The students went systematically across the surface of the cemetery, within this enclosed area, (and) ...they were able to identify another 30 or 40 hits. We think, if you look at the alignment, they are in rows.”

The metal grave markers discovered by the researchers will assist in determining how many are buried within the cemetery.

“That's kind of the goal today is to figure out how many people are here. We do have some historical records. We know some names, but we think that there are more,” Walter said. “So that's one of the biggest things that we're trying to accomplish in these first few weeks of investigation.”

One of the next steps for the group is to gain access to parts of the cemetery that were encroached upon to see if there is any evidence of graves there. The city of Graham determined it had ownership of the adjacent western property and the property owner was encroaching on both the Young County cemetery and the city property.

“We notified the property owner that we verified that it’s full city ownership of that parcel and he was encroaching,” City Manager Eric Garretty said. “We asked him to remove the encroachments and the property owner graciously complied.”

The city manager said  this case is not entirely uncommon and can happen even with previous owner transfers.

“When we did our title research… the last valid title to that property that was on file was a 1971 deed from Graham ISD to the city of Graham. That was the last deed in the public record that officially referred to that as a surveyed tract,” Garretty said. “…Sometimes those deed transfers and owner transfers will take place and what happens is either the parties won’t require a survey or a survey is not required. So if they didn’t go out and (complete) the survey they wouldn’t know that at whatever point the property (owner) just expanded over there.”

The city of Graham had a survey and a title search of the adjacent property completed and are hoping to use the property next to the cemetery for a project in the future.

“What we will have is a city lot and a county lot side by side to potentially serve the cemetery and that’s the next phase of discussions is how to best use that land, maintain that land, in support of the cemetery,” Garretty said.

The research group surveyed outside the eastern portion boundaries of the cemetery and were also able to make a number of discoveries.

“They did a little bit of survey outside of that fence line there with the metal detector and found another four or five metal markers which indicates that the cemetery probably extended beyond the current boundaries of the fence,” Walter said.

Along with scraping graves the students also added to the mapping system they created when they first visited the site at the beginning of March. How long the project will continue with the group will depend on what the descendants desire.

“We're taking it slow and we are hopeful that we can give some answers to the community. One of the things that a lot of people want to know is 'Who's buried here and where are they?' That is something that they're going to have to decide if they want to do more, which could mean DNA analysis, but that's up to (the descendants), not us,” Walter said. “It could be a long period of time that we're here working, it could be a short period. It really just depends on their needs and what they would like to see done here.”

Walter said the importance of the project is for descendants to reclaim the cemetery. Descendants like James Jackson, who has lived in Graham for 77 years and whose brother was laid to rest in the cemetery in January 1958.

The descendant who first shined a spotlight on the cemetery and is still searching for her sister’s grave is Rev. Vanessa Sims. She has been working with multiple entities to push for answers for not only herself, but also other descendants.

“We can’t be responsible for what people did in the past, we can only be responsible for what we do moving forward,” Sims said in a previous interview. “Going forward you don’t have to be collective... just us pulling together... to give the people that are buried (in the cemetery)... a standard of dignity that other people deserve. I continue to research and try to advocate (and) be a voice for the deceased and eventually, hopefully, find my sister’s grave and honor her.”

Walter said the group would not be here without Rev. Sims and the descendants in the community.

“I want to focus on them because they are the stakeholders and they have experiences and grew up in this community. That's the kind of stuff we want to learn,” she said. “We want to learn how it was like to be African American in Graham, Texas and any information that they have about relatives or people that they knew that were interred here, we obviously want to gather that information. So hearing those stories and their own histories is also very important to us to help tell the story of this cemetery.”