Wanda, The story in the Evansville Courier-Press actually was an abridged version distributed by the Associated Press. Flynn's original article appeared on December 26, 2002, in the Chicago Tribune. There's much more in that version, both about the cemetery and particularly the Old Slave House. However, what's not mentioned in that story -- we gave Flynn so much information -- is that the cemetery sits near the southwestern corner of the NE quarter of Section 12-7e-10s just across the line into Saline County. When I asked Mr. Booten about the where the people came from buried at the cemetery, he said they came from a settlement "at the head of Eagle." When I asked if he could be more specific, he responded by saying, "across from old Bethel Church." That location is about a mile to the southwest on the west side of Eagle Creek Road (that's the road that runs past Glen O. Jones Lake). I found out about the cemetery on the day before Thanksgiving when one of the researchers at American Resource Group contacted me for information about it. They had been hired by the coal company to survey the area. When the researcher told me where the cemetery was located I knew it had to be the same black cemetery we had been searching for in our Old Slave House and saltworks research. About five or six years ago two people told me about this cemetery, but no one either knew its location exactly or just wouldn't flat out tell me it's location because they knew Mr. Booten didn't want anyone to know about it. All I got was a hint that it was on property along Forest Road (on the Gallatin-Saline county line). We were interested in the site becauase of the story that it was an old black cemetery that possibly dated back to the saltworks days. We knew John Hart Crenshaw grew up in that area and that his father-in-law had land there. The possibility existed that the cemetery connected with the Crenshaws or Taylors. Indeed, the cemetery sits on land entered by Giles Taylor in 1818. That's just one-half mile east of William C. Crenshaw's land entry in 1814 and where John H. Crenshaw spent his teen-age years. The younger Crenshaw married Giles' daughter Francine "Sina" Taylor in 1817, and the following year Crenshaw purchased a quarter-section of his own a half-mile below his father's (his was the SW 1/4 of 14-7e-10s, his father's was the SW 1/4 of 11-7e-10s). That land is the quarter section opposite the former location of Bethel Church where Mr. Booten identified as the location of the black settlement. That at least provides a basis that the cemetery is associated with Crenshaw. It's also interesting to note that Giles Taylor freed his slaves (probably out in Virginia) before moving westward according to a biography of his son E. D. Besides being connected with Crenshaw there are at least two other possibilities for the cemetery and settlement. The first is a very early plantation known as Mount Airy. Some Saline County historians place Mount Airy on the west side of Eagle Mountain at the location of Somerset. Others place it on top of the mountain. Yet, a map from the 1850s places Mount Airy on the section line dividing Sections 14 and 23, or at the south side of John Crenshaw's first land entry. While researching the Old Slave House, Ron Nelson and I came across some old letters, probably from a probate file, that referred to an old plantation at Mount Airy. The letters were very early -- like the 1820s (I don't have them before me) and already the plantation no longer existed, that they were using brick from its ruins for another project. These mystery blacks may be from that plantation. The third possibility could be that the blacks were workers at the saltworks. I wondered about that, particularly before Mr. Booten told me where they were from. Section 12, the site of the cemetery, is just south of the boundary for the Saline Reservation. The presence of a cemetery there, close to an early north-south road, could have indicated that they were burying salt workers there just outside the reservation. On the day before Crenshaw purchased his 160 acres, three men by the name of Ormsby, Hite and Sullivan entered the quarter section just to the west. They were speculators or investors and entered at least two dozen tracts in the Shawneetown Land District area including one another seven miles to the south near the present site of Herod. There's both an Ormsby and Hite at the saltworks very early on. It's a possibility that the settlement may have been associated with them. Another possibility is that Eagle Creek actually turns south on Crenshaw's property and that even further upstream would put someone in the W 1/2 of the NE 1/4 of 23-7e-10s. No one entered that 80 acre section at an early date. The fact that someone (John Smith) entered the east half, but not the west half, which was unusual at that time, might be evidence of someone to the west. Anyway, that's the mystery of this cemetery. Mr. Booten says he's always heard that blacks are buried there and the Booten family has been in the area since at least the 1820s. He also said Ralph Stilley of Harrisburg knew about it. Mr. Stilley recently moved in with his daughter in another town and I haven't found anyone who remembers her married name so I haven't been in touch with her. Looking at the census transcripts of the area going back to 1820, there simply aren't any blacks residing in that area. That would seem to indicate that they must have been there earlier. By the way Rose, the people who started the stories about the Old Slave House where people who knew John Hart Crenshaw. We've recently got access to a letter that refers to people talking about something going on with the third floor in 1851 while Crenshaw was still alive and living temporarily in Equality at the time. Also, Clarence Bonnell heard the stories of the house after moving to Saline County about 1903 or 1904. His version he published in an article in 1922, basically follows what was always told at the site. What's interesting is that he heard the stories almost a decade before the Sisks purchased the property in 1913, which means that the Sisks didn't make up the core stories about something going on upstairs on the third floor. Local residents talked about Crenshaw being a kidnapper and a slave trader simply because he was. Sincerely, Jon Musgrave www.IllinoisHistory.com P.S. Update on the Handbook of Old Gallatin County -- The manuscript has arrived in New York and I'm supposed to receive a proof back sometime next week. Yesterday's confirmation to me should start the clock on the "six to eight" week time-table on how long it should take to get the books back. The final page count is 464 after I increased the book's size to a 6 by 9 inch format. More information on the book can be found at www.IllinoisHistory.com/Handbook.