ARTICLES ON REMOVAL OF GRAVES AT LIBERTY CEMETERY
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WINSTON-SALEM JOURNAL April 29, 1941
REBURIED AT COUNTY FARM
Work was begun yesterday toward moving an estimated 1000
graves from the old Liberty graveyard, on White street, which
adjoined the former Union Grove Chapel, an inter-
denominational institution, to a new plot at the Forsyth county
home.
County Commissioners James G. Hanes and Dr. D.C. Speas
were on the site yesterday to supervise the work and represent
the county.
The Forsyth county health department was cooperating with the
contractors doing the excavation work in keeping a man on the
site to measure the location of the plots and to keep accurate
records of bodies found so that reburial at the county home
would be correctly carried out.
E.M. Conrad and C.M. Thomas, contractors, have employed six
workmen, including two men for examination of the graves, for
the work.
Many persons yesterday visited the site as work got under way.
Remains of bodies were taken from the graves and deposited
in small boxes for reburial after they had been recorded.
Workers estimated that more than three weeks will be needed
to complete the work.
The graveyard, located on White street, has nearly 500 Negro
and 500 white bodies buried therein. The first work was begun
in the Negro section yesterday.
Scant remains from graves dating back as far as 1880 were
discovered yesterday. Older residents of Winston-Salem said
that no bodies have been buried there within the past 30 to 40
years.
County Commissioner Speas said that after the graveyard was
removed the property will be sold by the county, according to
present plans.
Henry A. Nading, a member of the board of trustees of the old
Union Grove Chapel, which was torn away about 10 years ago
with the proceeds going to the Goodwill Industries, said last
night that his board holds a deed, recorded in Stokes county
about 100 years ago, to the property owned by the chapel.
The land, which began at the Germanton road (Liberty street),
included one acre, much of which has since been used by the
Norfolk & Western Railway.
Whether or not the old chapel land will be sold with the
graveyard is not known. However, the board of trustees, which
also includes R.F. Carmichael and J.O. White, have intimated
that they would seek its sales with any money received going to
a worthy charity.
TWIN-CITY SENTINEL Aug 16, 1963
SETTLERS' GRAVES NEGLECTED
The last earthly remains of Timothy Leinbach and at least 200 other early settlers of the
community apparently repose in a cow pasture north of town.
They're buried in a mass grave or, more accurately, a triple-trench, about 30 feet wide and
70 feet long.
Their gravestones - most of them thin, oblong tablets of white marble in the style of one to
two centuries ago- were once laid in rows placed together, like paving stones.
Many are scattered now, a few broken, some illegible.
There's no way to be certain whether Timothy Leinbach is there. His nameplate couln't be
found.
GOOD COMPANY
If he is, he's in good company. Many of the stones which are still readable bear family
names prominent in the history of Winston and Salem -- Fries, Deschweinitz, Mosby,
Lowery, Johnson, Sapp, Ivy, Rumley, Brewer, Neal, Brown, Carmichael and others.
The spot is part of a hillside on what is-or was- part of the old Forsyth County farm.
The graves haven't been tended in a long time. In fact, about the only way to get to them is
to climb a four-strand barbed wire fence and take your chances with three Black Angus
bulls, a few hundred feet away.
Their neglect is made more obvious by contrast with the beautifully maintained private
cemetery of the Shouse family nearby.
It seems the graves have been there, virtually forgotten, for 23 years, ever since they were
moved fro the old Liberty Graveyard on White Street (now Ivy Avenue) in 1940.
They might have remained forgotten if Timothy Leinbach's great-grandson, Harold H.
Pierce of Hamptonville, hadn't gone looking for his ancestor's grave and become indignant
at what he found.
Pierce wrote a letter to the newspapers. He was under the impression he said that the
graves had been moved recently and dumped into the trench.
Alderman W.N. Schultz, who was county accountant when Forsyth County moved the
cemetery in 1940, says this is not correct.
"They've been right there in three rows ever since the county moved them," Schultz said.
Many of the graves had been in the old White Street burial ground for over 100 years then
and there wasn't much to move. "All we could find was a few bones and other things"
Schultz said. "There were no bodies".
The old White Street graveyard had been a poker-place and a canned heat jungle for
years. The stones were scattered. It was impossible to tell which graves they went with.
"We reburied them all in the three trenches and put all the stones there"
Hansom Averitt, who was county attorney at the time, said the county made every effort to
comply with the amenities.
"We advertised for next of kin," he said. "Then we had pine boxes made and took up what
we could find. There were only some bones.
"It was all done with perfect legality and due respect."
Apparently, there never was a roster of persons buried in the old Liberty Graveyard. A
search of the county minutes disclosed only that the county commissioners decided to deed
the city strips of it for widening White Street and Eleventh Street.
Later, in 1952, the county auctioned what was left of the former graveyard and sold it to the
highest bidders, R.F, J.F. and R.T. Carter, for $17,500.
When graves have existed for many years, there is little left. Digging usually turns up only
a few buttons or metal items, perhaps remains of bones. Eventually, unless they become
petrified, even the bones disappear. Only stone markers remain.
The law recognizes this. It centers more upon the stones than upon the mortal remains. It
says:
"Such graves when removed shall be removed in a suitable place in another cemetery, due
care being taken to protect the tombstones and to place them properly so as to leave the
graves in as good condition as before removal."
Whether the graves in the cow pasture are in as good condition as before removal may be
subject to argument. However, the section of this law applying to county governments was
not enacted until 1947.
DEPARTMENT CAREFUL
The law didn't apply to the state government until 1961. But the highway commission,
which has had many troubles over moving cemeteries, is always careful about them.
When builders of US 421 plowed into Indian mounds along the Yadkin River a few years
ago, Indians buried their braves' weapons with them, so they'd be available in the Happy
Hunting Grounds, and arrowheads usually remain-- they hastily summoned the N.C.
Historical Commission to take charge of them.
The Forsyth County government undoubtedly is responsible for maintaining any
abandoned public cemetery. The law says:
"The county commissioners of the various counties are required to take possession and
control of all abandoned public cemeteries in their respect counties, to see that the
boundaries and lines are clearly laid out, defined and marked, and to take proper steps to
preserve them from encroachment, and they are hereby authorized to appropriate from the
general fund of the county whatever sums may be necessary from time to time for the
above purposes."
There's another embarrassing point about all this for the county government:
Although it would take a survey to make sure, the old graves may be at least partly on the
old county farm property which the county sold to Hanes Hosiery Mills Co for $150,000 a
few years ago.
The deed to Hanes withholds access roads and a tract marked "cemetery" which is
registered as a 120 by 200 foot tract lying 662 fee off the paved road.
SHOUSE GRAVEYARD
This apparently covers the old Shouse graveyard. Whether it covers the nearby area
where the other cemetery was established may only be determined by a surveyor.
"We couldn't put the graves in the Shouse graveyard," explained Shultz. "That was
private property. We had to put them outside."
Gordon Hanes, president of Hanes Hosiery Mills, expressed surprise, and considerably
dismay this morning to learn about the graves.
He said the company had been careful to maintain suitable access over the crushed granite
drive to the old Shouse cemetery, but had leased the pasture to a cattle breeder.
"I didn't even know the other graves were there, " he said.
The following article was found in the Winston-Salem Journal June 15, 1913. Even though the cemetery was not identified as LIBERTY, its
location description falls within the same area.
SUIT OF CLOTHES DUG UP OUT OF A GRAVE THIS WEEK
Remains Had Been Buried in Local Graveyard About Twenty Years
A HUNDRED GRAVES MOVED BY THE CITY
City Has Completed The Work Of Disterring [sic]The Remains Of Hundred and Thirty People In The Colored Graveyard On Twelfth Street
In the busy present, all things must give way to progress. It is not often, however, that in paving the way to the Twin-City's future greatness that it
becomes necessary to move graveyards but that was the case this week when over one hundred graves were moved to make it possible to widen
Twelfth street for the purpose of laying the improved paving on that thoroughfare.
As far as known, this is the first time that Winston-Salem has ever moved a graveyard to make room for its growth.
The graveyard in question has not been in use for the past twenty years and the identity of practically every one of the people buried in the plat
whose remains were disinterred has been lost in this labyrinth of accumulating years. Years ago, it was widely used by the colored people.
Foreseeing the necessity of widening Twelfth street, the city officials had an act passed at the last session of the legislature conferring the
authority upon the city to move graves in just such instances, there being no law to allow it before that time.
The graves in which the remains of infants were deposited were opened and absolutely nothing was found save the decayed wood from the little
coffins, which was told by the dark earth in those places.
In some of graves were adults were buried, skeletons and teeth and hair were found, some of the skeletons being unusually well preserved.
In one of the graves a suit of clothes in splendid condition was found, the splendid condition of the clothes being attributed to the fact that the
deceased was buried in a much better grade of coffin that the others. This was deemed rather remarkable in view of the fact that
well-authenticated reports have it that no person has been buried in the graveyard within the last eighteen or twenty years.
The city force which disinterred the remains opened 125 or 130 graves and moved the remains further back in the cemetery.