Howdy folks! Two articles that were published by the Huntsville Times, of Huntsville, Alabama, have been posted on several mail lists recently. A lady named Kymm from Huntsville obtained permission to post these articles on the web, and we thank her for giving us permission to post them on the ROOTWALKER mail list. This is the first article, the second will follow in the next mail I send in a few moments. Once again, we thank Kymm for making these articles available from the Huntsville Times. Her web site is found at: http://hometown.aol.com/kymmdenise/genealogy.html We would also like to thank MS Megan N. WALDE for giving Kymm permission to use her stories. Thanks also to all of you for being the ROOTWALKER family. Sincerely, Stan Magnesen ROOTWALKER site/list coordinator ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ******************** Both articles can be found in The Huntsville Times Life Pages F1 and F5 on Sunday April 8, 2001. Both written by Megan N. Walde. Along with the articles are 3 photos and a map of the Madison area of Madison County, Alabama. Seeing as how I can't give you those due to Rootsweb's rules, I will try to get them on my website by the end of the day. Article one: The quick and the dead Historians hasten to preserve granite legacies in old cemeteries on paper and film By Megan N. Walde Times Staff Writer MADISON - An industrial clanging echoes along County Line Road. John RANKIN grabs his faded blue duffle bag, and Percy KEEL shoulders a homemade poker from the back of a hulking, go-anywhere van. The men head directly to the heart of this emerald-moss-lined wood. They know it is here, somewhere - a stone grave marker for a Civil War soldier named William WARD. A work crew near the site the day before had hit some granite and thought it might be part of an old cemetery. A worker had called a researcher to the public library. She had called RANKIN, on of the foremost cemetery historians in this area. RANKIN had called KEEL, a fellow historian, and within days the two were off on another search. So many old cemeteries are found this way - too many, according to RANKIN and other history buffs. As Madison continues to grow, abandoned graveyards are discovered amid the symbols of progress, such as video stores and subdivisions. As bulldozers clear more land for townhomes, restaurants and gas stations, developers and residents in Madison - and other cities - are literally stumbling over these crumbling links to the past. That's where RANKIN, a retired engineer, and KEEL, a longtime mail carrier, come in. The two are trying to preserve Madison's past on paper and film before it's gone. They make regular visits to known abandoned cemeteries in and around the city to monitor the conditions of stones and graves, photographing each stone and making digital copies. They add each one to a database at www.virtualcemetery.org. "They're going to disappear someday no matter what you do," RANKIN says of cemeteries. "This is the only thing we can do to make sure people can always view them." RANKIN's interest in cemeteries grew out of genealogical work. As he searched for friends' ancestors and his own, he came across burial information. When possible, he found the graves and photographed them. He enjoyed the work, but he spent many afternoons in the local library trying to match his finds with the historical records of an area he didn't know much about. The Gooch Cemetery On a brisk, gray day in January, Richard BROWN awaits a quick haircut from his sister, who works at the Big Tease hair salon on Hughes Road. BROWN walks his dog around the back of the salon and follows him into an isolated grove of trees on a slight hill. For what may be the third time in a dozen years, the GOOCH Cemetery is "discovered." Mary Anne HAMM knew the gravestones were there. One marks the grave of her great-grandfather Nathaniel Matson GOOCH, son of early Madison landowner Roland GOOCH. Land records show Roland GOOCH bought 160 acres on Feb. 2, 1818, the same day legendary settler John CARTWRIGHT bought his first Madison parcel. February 1818 was the first time the U.S. government allowed settlers to buy land belonging to the Indians, although many settlers had been faming and living on the land long before that. HAMM also knows the GOOCH Cemetery used to look different. She and her husband used to visit and clean the graves in the '70s. "It was 10 times bigger then," HAMM says. Today the cemetery is surrounded by houses, stores and banks. There are seven marked graves in all, including other GOOCHES and a DUBLIN. At least 15 more are marked by small fieldstones and the rectangular depressions RANKIN and KEEL know to look for. One grave seems out of place. A marker for 7-year-old Katie S. STEWART sits next to those of Nathaniel Matson and his wife, Susan. RANKIN and KEEL puzzled for years over how Katie figured into the GOOCH family's history. The answer came from HAMM, who heard stories about the GOOCHES in "the old days" from her grandmother. "I would crawl up in her lap, and she would show me pictures and all tat of my family way back," HAMM says. HAMM remembered Katie's story. Katie was born deformed with a growth in her head. When her parents gave her up, the GOOCHES took her in. "There are so many parts to these stories," RANKIN says, "it's like putting a puzzle together." On the west side of town, behind a storage center on Balch Road, there's another cemetery mystery. Beneath a blanket of dead winter leaves, mounds of slave made clay brick cover the graves of members of many old Madison families - GRAY, BLACKBURN, BURNS, MAXWELL, SANDERSON, and WOOD, among others. The GRAY Cemetery is also the resting place of at least two and maybe three Revolutionary War soldiers. The two soldiers known to be buried there are James TRIBBLE and William GRAY. RANKIN and library archivist Ranee PRUITT want to find the grave of the third soldier, Moses BAILEY. "It's more than just the history," says PRUITT, a member of the Daughters of the Revolution. "It's the place, the history of our community. You can tell a lot about someone by their tombstone. 'Corp'l. WM. WARD, Co. H' Sometimes, the puzzle pieces fall into place, like last week when RANKIN got a call that construction workers had found what might be a Civil War burial ground off County Line Road near the airport. Some county maps note a cemetery at that location; others don't. But as soon as RANKIN and KEEL get to the site, they know. All the tell-tale signs of an old cemetery are there. Sunken rectangles. Moss everywhere. Yucca plants. Tall, slender cedar trees. As the two men walk the site, they notice another clue. The area is the highest around, sloping gently toward a swampy creek leading to the Tennessee River. Then they find it. William WARD's headstone leans precariously toward a tree trunk, the bottom half well-covered by dirt and moss. RANKIN drops the blue duffle bag within arm's reach, drops to knees and prepares the stone for cleaning and photographing. Using a drywall sponge, he lightly scrubs surface dirt from the stone and blows the dust away. His fingers reverently trace the letters on the stone as he reads it, then he fishes out a piece of blue chalk from a plastic baggie to highlight the text. "Corp'l WM. WARD, Co. H. 15th U.S.C.T." If what RANKIN suggests about the site is true, he believes it should be a major historical attraction. He points to two letters on the WARD headstone - C.T. According to his military records WARD was a corporal in Company H, a "colored troop" in the Union Army's 15th Regiment. RANKIN is fascinated. "How did he get here? Why was he buried so far from home? Why is his the only grave marked with a stone? Who put it there, the military or his family? Was this a black cemetery?" He counts the other graves and points out the rigidly straight rows, 11 in all, each with 11 graves. To one side of the cemetery is a leaf-covered, man-made trench. "Did they cut this as protection during a battle, something to sort of hide behind?" RANKIN wonders aloud. KEEL, meanwhile, is trudging among the trees, stepping hard to find hidden stones. He occasionally pokes beneath the earth with the sharp metal end of his homemade poker. He finds half of another stone, but it's a good foot or more below the surface and too far to dig out. RANKIN and KEEL think WARD's marker is the only one left in what might have been a cemetery for black soldiers. Typically, the original markers would have been wooden crosses replaced later by family members. The construction workers who found the cemetery are putting in a communication tower. That likely won't disturb the cemetery, RANKIN says. But even if development doesn't destroy or encroach upon abandoned cemetery sites, nature will do its best. When trees fall, they can shatter gravestones. The roots of trees can create a sunken bowl that envelops and eventually buries graves and stones. Time and weather erase parts of names and dates, making it critical that stones are identified as soon as they are found. That's what RANKIN and KEEL do last before they leave the WARD stone. They will add the photographs, a site description and WARD's background to the collection they've amassed since 1998. RANKIN would like to see all of Madison's abandoned cemeteries donated to the city, fenced and maintained. Only one is now. It is the DILLARD-BIBB Cemetery, which sits off Sullivan Street inside Governors Estates. The subdivision was built around the cemetery because it was once thought to the burial place for the ancestors of Alabama's first two governors, brothers William and Thomas BIBB. "People need to be more aware, or we're going to lose this whole historical part of our existence as we build more shopping centers," PRUITT says. RANKIN encourages people to record their own family gravesites or those in their area with a simple point-and-shoot camera and upload the images to a genealogical web site. He also has found another way residents can help prevent the disappearance of old cemeteries. Five or more people - they don't have to be descendants of anyone buried in the cemetery - can petition the county clerk to take the cemetery out of private property. The clerk then assesses the cemetery property, and if those people can come up with that dollar amount, the cemetery is theirs to maintain in the public domain. "Really all you can do is delay the inevitable," RANKIN says, "but what it comes down to is who cares."