I’ve written about the removal of graves from “Jones-Hill-Coleman” Cemetery in 1995. I was puzzled by the name of the cemetery, its unclear location, and the location of the “Eva Coleman Cemetery” to which some of the burials were reinterred.
Jones-Hill-Coleman Cemetery is clearly the cemetery more commonly called Jones Hill. The removal of graves certificate filed in October 1995 identified 11 graves to be removed to “the new Coleman” cemetery and ten to be moved to Rest Haven Cemetery because of “road construction.” An attached map, labeled “Jones-Hill-Coleman Cemetery,” shows an orderly six-row graveyard adjacent to Old Raleigh Road. I was thrown initially because this sketch bears little resemblance to Jones Hill in its current state. Also, while 44 graves in Jones Hill have been identified, the graves on this map mostly were labeled “adult,” “baby,” or “no one found.” I assumed, in error I now see, that this meant the graves were unidentified, which puzzled me because Jones Hill contains dozens of headstones. Last, though the map is marked not to scale, the graves seemed awfully close to the road compared to the front edge of Jones Hill now.
I’m still a little confused, but with further study, I have a somewhat better understanding. A road construction project required the removal of graves from the right-of-way buffering Old Raleigh Road.
Wilson Daily Times, 25 July 1995.
The burials in the public right-of-way primarily were descendants of Henry and Mary Jane Thompson Coleman, who had owned a 68-acre tract of land just north of the cemetery.
In 1990, that tract was divided among Henry Coleman’s heirs. Daughter Eva Coleman, now deceased, received tracts 2 and 3, containing 13.7 acres, at bottom right. See Wilson County deed book 1410, page 341.
Plat book 21, page 150, Wilson County Register of Deeds Office, Wilson.
Google Maps aerial view of the area with a dotted line marking the lower boundary of the Coleman tracts and (A) at Jones Hill Cemetery.
Detail of 2013 plat map showing Jones Hill Cemetery, bottom left above “Old,” and the bottom edge of the Coleman tracts. Plat book 39, page 184.
Per the map attached to the removal of graves certificate, ten identified remains — mostly Joneses and Edmundsons — were moved to Rest Haven Cemetery in Wilson.
John Thomas Edmundson’s relocated grave in Rest Haven, courtesy of findagrave.com.
The other eleven graves — all but two unidentified — were moved to a new cemetery created on Eva Coleman’s land at a location described on a map of the cemetery attached to the certificate as:
The graves are not recorded at Findagrave.com. A zoomed-in perusal of the Eva Coleman tract on Google Maps reveals an area with housing and outbuildings surrounded by plowed fields. At the bottom corner of the tract, however, this clear area appears:
Though its location does not square easily with the description above, this would seem to be the Eva Coleman Cemetery. Can any family members confirm?
