Heather Ainsley
ECB Publishing, Inc.
Nestled in the vast acreage of the El Destino Plantation is a small parcel of land that holds within it a precious keepsake. Buried beneath the tall, golden grass is a cemetery, and an old cemetery at that.
El Destino was first owned and operated by John Nuttall, who was a wealthy resident of Virginia. It is believed that Nuttall first purchased the land in 1828 as a frontier speculation, and operated the plantation with his son, William B. Nuttall. In its early operation, the Nuttalls brought along 52 slaves, 32 of which were rated as working hands. After his father's death, William Nuttall married a woman named Mary Wallace Savage, who was a Savannah heiress who owned 54 slaves of her own. Just before her husband's death in 1836, Mary inherited about eighty slaves from her uncle, and to employ all of them, Mary purchased a secondary plantation just six miles north of El Destino called Chemonie. On May 18, 1840, Mary married a man named George Nobel Jones, who bought all but one of the slaves belonging to the Nuttall estate.
These slaves and share-croppers were the labor that made plantation life possible. El Destino alone stands on several thousand acres of land, which was used for a vast variety of crops and purposes, including but not limited to tobacco fields, corn fields, potatoes, beans, peas, sugar cane fields, cotton and indigo. Scattered across the plantation were churches, worker houses, smoke houses, barns and farmsteads, and there was also a wide selection of livestock and working animals like cow, horses, mules, goats and bulls. When a slave passed away, they were buried on the site of a church ground that belonged to the El Destino Plantation. Many slaves lived and died without ever seeing liberation, and were laid to rest by their families or acquaintances in unmarked graves, their names lost in time.
On Jan. 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war, President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. The proclamation declared "that all persons held as slaves" within the rebellious states "are, and henceforward shall be free." With this, the many slaves that belonged to El Destino and Chemonie Plantations experienced freedom for the first time in American history. Many of them, having nowhere else to go, continued on as share-croppers or as paid workers, living the remainder of their lives on the expansive grounds of the plantation, marrying and having children who grew up there. Upon their deaths, these individuals were buried in the cemetery alongside family and kin that they had known.
The cemetery, called the Old Mt. Zion Cemetery, is an outparcel that is owned and maintained by the Pallbearer society and is surrounded by plantation land currently owned by Beau Turner, son of legendary media mogul Ted Turner. The graveyard is an all-but-forgotten site, especially for Jefferson County citizen Eugene Hall, known through the community as District 2 Chairman for the Jefferson County Board of County Commissioners. Hall regularly visits the cemetery, paying his respects to various members of his family, among them, his own mother.
“My mother, Ruth Hall, is buried here,” Hall revealed during an interview at the cemetery. He gestured to a large rectangular ledger covering the grave, her name, date of birth and death day chiseled into the hard stone. “She, along with one of my brothers and many cousins are laid to rest here.”
It was one of Hall's cousins, Thomas Glenn, age 92, who told him many years ago where his mother's grave was located, having spent his entire career working on the plantation. He, too, has family buried at Old Mt. Zion Cemetery. Ever since, Hall has come to the cemetery regularly, to pay his respects to his mother, who died right after he was born.
“My father was so hurt when she died,” Hall mentioned as he cleared away some fallen leaves from the grave, “that he never took me to see where she was buried. I never knew, until I was told, and even then I had to be shown a couple of times before I could find it on my own.”
Indeed the graveyard is so well secluded, it is difficult to find without clear instructions. Marked by a small sign in the woods that reads, “Old Mt. Zion Family Cemetery,” the site is home to well over a dozen marked graves, and sunken areas in the tall grass show distinct signs of numerous unmarked burials. Although there used to be a church, which stood on the edge of the graveyard, nothing remains of it now except what the ground has since preserved. Over the years, Hall and his wife Shirley came to be on good terms with Beau Turner, who has allowed them to cross over private plantation grounds in order to visit the family gravesite. During the visits, Hall and his living kin honor their family with cards, flowers, prayers, songs and praises to “God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost.”
Hall believes that the cultural impact of this cemetery is significant, not just to him and his own extended family, but to Black families all across the Jefferson County community. “Negro families connected to those presently buried at Old Mt. Zion AME Church cemetery at El Destino Plantation include: Bassa, Barrington, Blakes, Norton, Ingram, Lawrence, Green, Hall, Hughes, Hightower, Huggins, Campbell, Cooper, Robinson, Thompson, King and several others,” Hall stated, adding that it is a goal of his and several others to get the property placed on the National Historic Register due to its cultural and historic significance. “Local archaeologists and anthropologists see it as a scientific goldmine,” he says “We would like a sign along U.S. 27 Hwy. that points toward the plantation and signifies that a historical cemetery is sited and situated there.”
If protected under the National Register, Hall says, it would mean that the lives and contributions of those who worked the plantation, people like his mother and other family members, would finally be honored for making the large estate what it has become today. It would also mean that members of society would have to consider the historical and societal significance of the former slaves, as well as the freed men and women who helped build the rudiments for the foundation of plantations like El Destino. There is a legacy buried in the grounds of Old Mt. Zion cemetery. In some ways, the legacy is faded, as much information and detail has been lost to circumstance.
“After speaking with several matriarchs and patriarchs, we cannot determine exactly how many of the deceased buried there were freed men or slaves,” said Hall. “There are many unmarked graves there.” According to Dr. Willet Boyer, there is an estimated minimum of 200 burials at this site. Dr. Boyer works as both an instructor at Jefferson Somerset and as a historical archaeologist and Associate Scholar at the Aucilla Research Institute. If the families associated with the site grant permission, he hopes to do ground-penetrating radar to determine the full extent of the site and the number of burials present.
“In my judgement,” Dr. Boyer stated, “it clearly would qualify for inclusion in the National Register of Historic Places, both individually and as part of a larger group of such sites. Application for a National Register nomination should be a goal for the protection of this site and others like it, as Jefferson County's modern community has extraordinary continuity from and connection with the past.”
In some cases, only names and jobs are known, the rest of the details, such as birth and death records, marriages and children or even final resting locations have been lost. Hall recalls some of the family history that delves back for generations at the plantation, “We have learned... that Preston Grambling was the official dog handler/manager, and that Joe Hughes was farm superintendent. (My) Cousin Monique Blake was head butler at the big house; his wife Mrs. Ruth Blake was head cook. Prior to them, it was Mr. Lewis as butler and his wife Ms. Maddie as head cook.” But the farther back you dig, the less information is readily available.
“The persons I listed are distant relatives of my family,” he said, “Lewis and Maddie's last names are unknown to us. They, as well as Mr. and Mrs Blake are now deceased. We are unsure where Lewis and his wife are buried. Even so, we know the Blakes are laid to rest at St. Phillip A.M.E. Church in Lloyd.”
While there is a great deal of information that is unknown, the cultural significance of what we do know is expansive. Buried within the soil of that sacred ground are the remains of not merely an ancient and well-rooted Black family, with living decedents scattered all across the region. The earth holds a monumental truth for the Black community, both modern and historic. Buried side by side beneath the golden, whispering grasses, and the tall, stretching pine trees are slaves who lived and died as property, freed men, who were born into slavery and ultimately saw its end, and men and women who never were subjected to slavery. Silently cradled in the hidden parcel of land is a wealth of experiences, both joyous and horrific that are as much a part of our history as the plantation homes who housed them.
To illustrate the words of Mr. Gene Hall, “Too often, important cultural elements can be overlooked or discounted as unimportant. Enslaved Africans, who subsequently became emancipated had a rich oral history, but not as much written records due to their condition in life. Hence, cemeteries on or near plantations in America can provide valuable repositories of cultural and historical artifacts that remind us where we came from and also influence in many ways where we are headed as a community, especially here in rural societies. They are also an indication of how the lives of wealthy owners of large plantations and those of their hired hands are interwoven together since times memorial.”
History provides a link to the roots of a community and the people who live there. Preserving and sharing that history is a way for us to translate our knowledge and understanding of the world as it was to future generations, so that we may grow and move forward as a collective of the human race.
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