On an earlier research trip over to the Edgecombe County Courthouse in Tarboro, I happened upon Saint Luke Episcopal’s small cemetery on the edge of town. Today, I was more deliberate in my search for a cemetery that, until fairly recently, contained rare wooden grave markers:
After a little backing and forthing along West Wilson Street, I found Saint Paul A.M.E. Zion’s cemetery. (It is not adjacent to the church, which was destroyed in flooding in 1999 and rebuilt up the road.) Not to put too fine a point on it, the cemetery is in terrible shape. Though I know of no direct links to Wilson County for anyone buried there, y’all know how I feel about these spaces, and I stepped out to look around and pay respects.
The cemetery was founded in 1892. I did not find any wooden markers, but a number of fine century-plus year-old headstones still stand, including a beautiful marker for Odd Fellow P.L. Baskerville (the detail in that broken rose!); one for Louise Cherry Cheatham, first wife of United States Congressman Henry P. Cheatham; Viola Smith’s pristine anchor-and-ivy; and a fantastically engraved cement Hall family marker.
Add Saint Paul’s to the list of critically endangered historic African-American cemeteries in eastern North Carolina. If anyone is aware of efforts to reclaim it, please let me know.
Preston (or Presley) Lewis Baskerville was a Republican party stalwart, who, like Samuel H. Vick, enjoyed Congressman George H. White‘s patronage. His work as a painter and decorator earned him a feature in A.B. Caldwell’s History of the American Negro and His Institutions, North Carolina Edition (1921). (Alongside Wilsonians like Vick, Dr. William A. Mitchner, Rev. A.L.E. Weeks, D.C. Suggs, and others.)
That stylized tree? Fern? In cement. My mind is unceasingly blown by the artistry of hand-cut/curved/poured grave markers.
Viola Smith’s headstone is a fine example of this style.
Yuccas, traditional plant grave markers.
Photo of wooden marker courtesy of Knight and Auld, African American Heritage Guide: Tarboro, Rocky Mount, Edgecombe County (2013); other photos by Lisa Y. Henderson, December 2023.