I finally saw Julia Boyette Bailey‘s grave for myself.
Getting there required a slog along the edge of Buckhorn reservoir, which has retreated from the wood line under a ferocious and prolonged drought. At water’s edge, I nearly lost my boot when the crust of the soft yellow-gray mud gave way beneath my step.
The snags of old cypresses now stand fully exposed, and Julia Bailey’s grave is now well above the waterline.
Randy Marshburn and Al Letchworth have placed flowers at the site, cut back the briars growing over it, and stood up the cleaned headstone in a temporary, but solid, repair. Julia Bailey’s footstone is visible at the bottom of this photo. Andrew W. Terrell‘s footstone lies across her grave. His broken headstone was once visible underwater, but has since disappeared. Depressions near Bailey’s grave suggest other burials.
I’ll say it again. This is the grave of “Julia Boyette Bailey, a woman who was born into slavery; grew to adulthood, married, and bore children under its yoke; and lived only four years beyond it. Hers is one of the, if not the, oldest known burials of an African-American person in Wilson County.”
We know that R. Ward Sutton, a Rocky Mount undertaker, was contracted to disinter, remove, and reinter 16-18 graves in the “Bailey-Tarell” cemetery in 1998. We also know that he never did it. Sutton ran adds on four consecutive weeks in April 1998, notifying the public that Julia Bailey, Andrew W. Terrell, and unnamed others would be reburied in Bailey Cemetery. And yet here they are, still on the City of Wilson’s land.
Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, July 2026.
