Where are the Missing Graves in Happy Hill Cemetery?
By Judy Stanley Cardwell
In the spring of 2011, Rural Initiative Project, Inc. began work on a project across the Salem Creek from Old Salem. The Salem Moravians called this town “Liberia”, now known as Happy Hill. On April 29, 1872, the Salem Congregation sold the first two lots to Wm. A. Lemly for Edward (Ned) Lemly and Richard (Rich) Siewers, “colored men”. This meant that the Freedmen would be able to live in their own community for the first time and own their homes. The lots were the same size as the lots in Salem, 100ft wide by 200ft long. Lots were purchased at $10.00 a piece and the people that bought lots in Liberia began, almost immediately, to call it “Happy Hill.”
Happy Hill was a self-contained, thriving community within the Wachovia Tract. For many, jobs were held outside of Happy Hill in the town of Salem and at Salem College and most worked in R. J. Reynolds Tobacco Factories. In the 1950s, The Winston-Salem Housing Authority started buying lots in Happy Hill and often condemned property in Happy Hill for Happy Gardens Housing Project. Most of the shotgun homes were torn down to make room for this project.
Beginning in the late 1880s, the Methodist Episcopal Church and Baptist Church purchased properties for a cemetery known locally and stated on death certificates as the Happy Hill Cemetery. There were 4 Methodist Episcopal Cemetery lots and one Baptist Church Cemetery Lot.
When Highway 52 came through, a portion of the Happy Hill Cemetery was in the Right-of-way for Highway 52. The graves from this property were moved to the Nat Watkins property behind the Oak Gove Baptist Church in Walkertown, NC. There were 16 marked graves moved and around 185 unmarked graves moved to Walkertown, NC.
There are problems in the cemetery, for instance, the plat map of Liberia was never recorded by the Moravians. This unrecorded map has been misplaced, or lost, by the Moravian Archives in Old Salem. The only maps available are a 1930s zoning map, an aerial map circa 1950s, 1952 Forsyth County Tax Map and the current Forsyth County Tax Map.
Through research done by Judy Stanley Cardwell, 1,400 burials have been identified in the cemetery of Happy Hill verified by death certificates, photos of stones and other surveys done of the cemetery. According to the current Forsyth County Tax Map, the cemetery is 1.9 acres. The acreage, coupled with the number of graves, shows that we are possibly missing a portion of the original cemetery. Many of the “old timers” from the Happy Hill Community have stated that the Winston-Salem Housing Authority built Happy Hill Gardens on top of the cemetery.
Rural Initiative Project, Inc. wants to get a complete survey of the existing cemetery. We need to preserve the memory of those existing burials in the cemetery at Happy Hill. Mrs. Cardwell has identified ministers, children under age 5, people born in slavery times, World War I Veterans and Masons that are buried in the cemetery.
“I have frequently asked myself as I walked through the cemetery seeing the fallen and broken tombstones and depressed areas where graves exist but are missing their tombstones, I hope that my life on earth means something so that I will not be forgotten in death as many of those are in the Happy Hill Cemetery” -Angelo Franceschina, President/CEO Rural Initiative Project, Inc.
©2011 Judy Stanley Cardwell
