PICKENS COUNTY, S.C. (WCBD) – Clemson University announced on Monday that recent testing may have revealed the location of more than 200 unmarked graves possibly belonging to African Americans.
According to a news release, ground-penetrating radar was used last month which located the possible location of the unmarked graves – dating back more than a century – in Woodland Cemetery on the Clemson University campus.
Woodland Cemetery, or “Cemetery Hill,” was created back in the early 1920s at the idea of former Clemson president Walter Merritt Riggs to recognize faculty and college administrators for their service to the school. The land is located adjacent to the John C. Calhoun family plots.
The graves are thought to be those of enslaved people who worked from about 1830 to 1865 on Calhoun’s Fort Hill Plantation and later as sharecropper and Black laborers, according to Clemson University. This included convicted individuals who were involved in the construction of Clemson College from 1890 to 1915 – all of which are believed to be African Americans.
Clemson is in contact with the local African American community about the discovery. The say Dr. Rhondda Thomas, the Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature at Clemson, whose research and teaching focuses on early African American literature and culture, will engage with area families as they work to understand who may be buried in the cemetery.
They’ll also work to see what steps should be taken to honor their lives.
A dedicated historian, Dr. Paul Anderson, is leading the research. The work will be published on a website dedicated to the cemetery’s history.
“We are committed to taking all the critically important actions to enhance these grounds, preserve these grave sites and to ensure the people buried there are properly honored and respected,” said Smyth McKissick, chairman of the Board of Trustees. “Clemson is dedicated to developing and sharing a full and accurate history of this area and to develop a preservation plan to protect it and those who rest here.”
Clemson said testing revealed disturbed soil nearly five feet beneath the surface which is an indication of the possible burial sites. They said an on-going investigation could identify additional potential burial sites in the weeks or months ahead.
Photo: Tara Romanella Photo: Tara Romanella
In September 1960, Clemson requested a court order approving the school’s plan to locate graves in the area marked with fieldstones and to move them several hundred feet to an area to the south. The release stated that a number of graves moved is currently unknown, but appears many are still in their original location.
Clemson utilized historical markers at Woodland Cemetery in 2016 to designate the area as the site of the Fort Hill Slave and Convict Cemetery and acknowledging the roles played by enslaved and convicted individuals buried there.