Today, about a dozen Barton College students (including three from abroad) demonstrated their commitment to community, spending their Day of Service at Odd Fellows with Lane Street Project’s Senior Force. This is the third year we’ve hosted Barton students, and we are grateful both for their help and for the opportunity to share some Wilson history. Thank you, Professor Lydia Walker, for making and keeping this connection!
Yesterday, the community came together for the first of two scheduled clean-ups at Hamilton Burial Garden. I was surprised and touched to learn that Donta Chestnut also took some time to bring lawn maintenance professional Quell to Odd Fellows. Speaking live on Facebook, Chestnut showed Quell and others around while relaying the story of Samuel H. Vick, the histories of both Odd Fellows and Vick Cemeteries, and Lane Street Project.
So much work to do here and at Hamilton, and it’s going to take the whole village’s commitment. This, y’all, is how we honor our past and our present! Thank you!
I recently blogged about deteriorating conditions at Hamilton Burial Garden, the most recently established of the six historically African-American cemeteries lining Bishop L.N. Forbes Street. The community has stepped up to organize a clean-up at Hamilton on August 30. I encourage everyone to pitch in — and to show the same love when Lane Street Project’s next clean-up season starts in January 2026. These are our people. Those buried in Hamilton are the grandsons and granddaughters of the men and women buried in Odd Fellows Cemetery.
What a week for Lane Street Project! Wednesday, Homeschoolers Honoring Ancestors came to learn the history of Odd Fellows Cemetery and carefully clean headstones. Today, Greenfield School students, staff, and family fanned out across the cemetery to cut grass, lop vines, and haul debris for four solid hours. They were joined by the brothers of Beta Beta Beta Chapter of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity and officers of Wilson Police Department, who grilled hotdogs for all volunteers! This is community!
Beta Beta Beta is back and putting in work!
As soon as I arrived, these young men asked for an assignment. With Steve Manna, they cleared the area around the partially collapsed brick vault …
… and installed caution tape to warn others away from the opening.
Flowers for the cemetery’s founder, Samuel H. Vick.
This young lady nearly single-handedly mowed the entire front section, an immediate improvement in the site’s visibility from the street.
Piling debris onto tarps to drag to the curb. Our littlest volunteers had their own wheelbarrow for collecting pinecones and were a tremendous help in cleaning the fence of faded decorations.
In honor of Women’s History Month, flowers for Della Hines Barnes, whose headstone inspired the LSP logo.
The last — and maybe largest — of the big wisteria vines. Photographer Chris Facey gives you some notion of scale.
Cross section of a smaller wisteria vine. The growth rings are 1/2- to 3/4-inch apart.
Breaking for lunch.
Gathering “tumbleweed” to haul out. (Does anyone know the name of this fresh scourge?)
These young men uncovered another vault cover in Odd Fellows!
Hey, Adam Rosenblatt — the Senior Force now have copies of Cemetery Citizens!
Special thanks to Greenfield Assistant Head of School Steve Manna and Greenfield parent/Que Chris Johnson!
I don’t often get to put in a full Lane Street Project service day, but yesterday I put in work. Castonoble Hooks and Briggs Sherwood were in the parking lot oiling tools when I pulled up, and Raymond Renfrow was headed into the trees to hack down wisteria shoots.
Our complete elimination of treetop wisteria and dead trees has exposed the ground to sunlight for the first time in decades. Enormous weeds and weedy shrubs — dog fennel, pokeweed, privet, sedge grass, and wisteria shoots — have rushed to colonize the space. With the arrival of Portia Newman and Lisa Benoy Gamble, we focused on cutting and clearing the areas between Henry Tart and Lula Dew Wooten‘s headstones. When Billy Woodard strode in John Henry-style with ax and chainsaw, we sent him deeper into the cemetery to fell small dead or dying trees and cut large vines. Chris Facey circled among us, chronicling the work through his cameras, and a large pile of cuttings waits to be hauled to the curb by the next workday’s volunteers.
B. Sherwood takes a breather after clearing around Lula Dew’s fine grave marker. You can see behind him how thickly the weed stalks have sprouted.
Portia and I went hunting for the pile of headstones that includes my great-great-grandmother Rachel Taylor‘s and found these weird swells of dried weeds. I generally know my noisome invasive plants, but this one is throwing me. This area was cleared last season, so this growth occurred over the summer and fall.
What is this stuff?
It reshrouded the headstones and everything else at the back of the opening. I had to pull up mats of this stuff to get to Rachel Taylor’s headstone, which was once again pinned down by wisteria runners. On the plus side, it pulls free fairly easily, and the task will be even less difficult without snow weighing down and wetting the stalks.
Bessie McGowan’s headstone released from its shroud.
On the bright side, late February and early March are daffodil season at Odd Fellows and Rountree Cemeteries!
Photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, February 2025.
Nobody showed up.
And, actually, the mess was Odd Fellows Cemetery, not Rountree.
But I tried again that December, and y’all came through, and we discovered Sam Vick‘s headstone.
Please come on out tomorrow morning. We still need your help.
