
Members of the Men’s Ministry and Disaster Relief team from Mountain State Baptist Association take on the challenge of cleaning up the decades of overgrowth at the Lincoln Park Cemetery in Green Valley Saturday. Slowly, headstones begin to emerge from the thick overgrowth of the long neglected cemetery. Bill French clears small trees from around a veterans headstone.
GREEN VALLEY, W.Va. — Rev. Tom Carpenter, pastor of Bridge Baptist Church in Matoaka, often drives on Maple Acres Road in Green Valley and he had noticed two markers near the Rt. 460 intersection that said Lincoln Park.
“I was trying to figure out what it was,” he said of the markers that led into a road by the woods. “The markers finally became so overgrown I decided to find out.”
What Carpenter discovered after some research was that Lincoln Park is actually an African-American cemetery that has been long neglected, overgrown to the point the road into it was blocked and tombstones were not visible.
By early afternoon, dozens of tombstones could finally be seen in the woods among the trees, but the work is not yet finished.
“The cemetery is about five acres,” said Allan Thompson, director of missions for the Mountain State Baptist Association.
When the organization heard about the cemetery through Carpenter, the wheels started rolling to organize clean-up day.
“The cemetery has not been attended to in about 20 years,” Thompson said, “We are doing this to show the love of Christ in a practical manner that people can see.”
Thompson said it also shows how helping out crosses racial lines and can help get conversations started about racial issues.
“We also want to restore some dignity and respect for these people buried here,” he said. “They deserve it.”
Thompson said the association includes 40 churches in a 9-county area with at least seven churches represented on Saturday.
Jim Dillingham, a member of Covenant Baptist Church in Princeton, was on hand to help out.
He is also in charge of disaster relief for the association.
“We go where we are invited to help,” he said.
The work at the cemetery was actually scheduled to start in June, but the flooding in the Greenbrier Valley changed that.
Dillinger said they have been working in that area, now helping rebuild.
But whether it’s flooding, other disasters or a neglected church cemetery, the association is ready to help.
“We’re just here trying to make a difference and show we care,” he said.
Carpenter said the overgrowth was so bad someone could walk along the road beside it and not see one tombstone.
“When we came here this morning, you couldn’t see any of them,” he said.
The cemetery registry he found at the Mercer County Historical Society listed 93 graves, he said, but he has learned there are actually about 193.
“We found many that are sunken,” he said, “and there are many marked only with a small metal marker.”
Carpenter said the cemetery has an interesting history, and buried in a large tomb at the top of of the hill is a doctor from Bluefield. At the time of his death, other cemeteries would not bury him because cemeteries were segregated.
“There is one white woman buried in the cemetery,” he said, “ the doctor’s wife, who was from Germany.”
She, too, could not be buried in a white cemetery.
Carpenter said it’s difficult to say when the cemetery opened, but many visible tombstones had dates from the 1930s to the 1960s and the newest one found was in the 1980s.
Several veterans are buried there, he added.
One was Willie Ware, a World War I veteran who died in 1943. Another was John Cephus Ware, a Korean War veteran who was buried there in 1964.
Carpenter said in order to get permission to clean off the cemetery he had to find the owner.
That research led him to Parkersburg, W.Va. He talked with a lady who is in charge of the estate of the owner, whose last name is Moon. She is in a nursing home there.
“When we walked the perimeter, we found out the graves are everywhere,” he said. “We (the association) decided to take it on as a project.”
Carpenter said they will work on the project through the course of the winter to clear all of the five acres, and hopefully find all of the tombstones.
Photos have also been taken of some of the tombstones and will be posted on gravefinder.com in hopes of locating relatives, he added.
“Once we get it cleaned up we may take it up as a yearly project,” he said. “It would be nice if people in the community would help keep it clean.”
Curtis Croy, a member of First Baptist Church in Princeton, was on hand to help out.
“I help because they told me I have a strong back,” he said grinning. “No, it’s an honor to be here and help. It’s a privilege to do this.”
Female church members were also working.
Chastity Whitlow of Princeton is a member of Silver Springs Baptist Church.
“I work at Roselawn (cemetery) and I had heard of this cemetery,” she said. “When I heard about this project, I was excited and willing to help.”
Whitlow said the history is interesting and she enjoyed learning about that.
“They (those buried here) deserve the care as well,” she said. “ We will get it clean, and it’s rewarding when we can see our progress.”
“We want to restore the dignity to this cemetery,” Thompson said.
Ceres Baptist Church provided lunch for the workers.
— Contact Charles Boothe at [email protected]