Effort to preserve neglected historic cemetery making progress

Efforts to restore and preserve the old Zion Hill Primitive Baptist Church Cemetery on Murrah Road have been gaining momentum.

The cemetery, dating back to 1830, is the oldest in the city and, in fact, predates New Albany by about 40 years. Hardly anyone here knew of its existence, however, only assuming it to be a nice grove of old trees.

That’s because it was essentially abandoned in the early 1900s and not regularly maintained over the years.

To complicate matters, the cemetery somehow became part of privately owned land. When the owner died, it took 28 years for the courts to sort out claims by the distant heirs. That was in 1998 and, other than formally naming the cemetery for the property owner, the cemetery continued to be ignored. That is, except for some of the heirs, apparently, who thought they would be able to sell the property for development and had a company haul away all the grave monuments. No one has admitted to ordering the removal, the monument company seems to have ceased to exist and there is no record of what happened to the monuments.

A couple of newspaper articles over the years have drawn some mild interest in the cemetery but no real action.

This time may be different.

Thanks to a grant project of the Union County Heritage Museum, Cathy Garrett is coordinating efforts to restore the cemetery as much as is possible and facilitate its preservation.

She has been researching the paper trail of related deeds and court orders concerning the cemetery and church, and trying to identify those buried there. A list of 20 persons buried exists but the cemetery obviously has more than 20 graves.

In the most recent effort, the city mowed the approximately half acre site in a grove of trees.

Thursday, while Garrett was looking at possible ways to improve the site, Danny Murrah stopped by. It is Murrah’s family for whom the street is named and he grew up there. Murrah said his great-great-grandfather is buried in the cemetery but he doesn’t know where.

What he did know is the location of the one known remaining grave marker.

According to published stories, one family member of a person buried there found out about the non-sanctioned removal and demanded that the marble works return that marker, which was done.

The flat marker, mostly covered by leaves and dirt until Thursday, was for Issabella Young. The stone reads “J. M., wife of C. C. Young, born June 23, 1848.” The death month is illegible but the day of the month is the 30th and the year 1912.

Murrah was able to help locate that marker.

Shortly after that, Mike Kirk of U. S. Lawns stopped by because he had been asked for advice about appropriate ground cover.

Kirk volunteered the services of his company to spray the existing ivy, grass, weeds and other vegetation, which was done before noon.

After the cemetery is cleaned and sprayed a couple of times, volunteers will remove everything down to the dirt.

Then, genealogist Sandra McCollum is going to try to identify gravesites.

Eventually, Garrett wants to erect a single central monument, since there is no way to identify individual grave occupants, and have signs giving the cemetery history and names of those known to be buried there.

The long-term goal is to erect a fence on either side of the cemetery, although that will be expensive.

Garrett already has offers of volunteer help with the project, but will need more. Removing the dead vegetation might be a good Scout project, for instance.

For the most part, improvements will depend on volunteerism, contributions and possible grants.

As is the case with New Albany’s main cemetery, the city is authorized to maintain and preserve it, but not mandated to do so.