A grave matter

Geologists of Thacker, Seramur and Associates perform a geophysical survey in the Old Chapel Hill Cemetery. DTH/Michelle May

The white section of Old Chapel Hill cemetery contains many large, elegant tombstones. But the other side could be mistaken for a field scattered with a few graves.

Historians hypothesize many former slaves and freedmen might be buried in the black section of the cemetery in unmarked graves.

After a survey this week by the Preservation Society of Chapel Hill, the forgotten could be discovered.

“In researching the past, there are so many people who have been lost and forgotten because of vandalism,” said Ernest Dollar, executive director of the society.

The society is using two types of surveying — ground-penetrating radar and electrical resistivity — across a quarter of the black section of the cemetery to look for unmarked graves, he said.

Environmental Services, Inc. and Thacker, Seramur and Associates are helping the society conduct the survey.

“Most of the graves were marked with field stones or markers that have tipped over or rotted away, and people have tried to realign them, leading to unmarked graves,” said Keith Seramur, the technician whose company conducted the geophysical surveys.

Ground-penetrating radar will detect ground disturbances and refilling, Dollar said. Electrical resistivity will provide more clues as to whether a burial occurred, he said.

“If you do survey across an area and in some places, the soil has been dug up and put into the ground, you get areas of lower resistivity,” Seramur said. “They will show up as anomalies when you map out resistivity levels.”

These anomalies will often show up in rows and delineate areas of unmarked graves, he said.

Dollar said the society became directly involved with the cemetery after the 1985 UNC-Clemson University football game.

Fans used the black section of the cemetery as a parking lot.

“A lot of the graves there were destroyed,” Dollar said. “That’s what really galvanized the community to start preserving the cemetery.”

The cemetery was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1994. The historical society estimates 1,600 people are buried at the cemetery.

Dollar said he believes there are unmarked graves because both whites and blacks worked, lived and died in the area in the late 18th century, but there was a gap of time when no burials of black people were recorded.

The first documented burial in the cemetery was George Clarke, a white University student, who died in 1798. The first burial of a black person was recorded in 1853.

“If this isn’t preserved, it’s lost history,” said Jay Thacker, the technician who conducted the electrical resistivity testing.

He said while the society is only conducting testing in a specific quarter of the cemetery, he would like to see more testing done if it sees good results.

“This is important to the community,” said Beth Compton, an assistant technician on the survey. “If these were my ancestors, I would want to know where the lost graves are.”

Dollar said it is imperative that these people be remembered.

“The African-American section really deserves this amount of time, energy and respect,” he said.



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