City’s oldest historic cemetery may be seeing end of 75 years of neglect

After more than three-quarters of a century of neglect, New Albany’s oldest cemetery may finally be getting the respect it deserves.

For years the cemetery was ignored, then desecrated, then ignored again, but it looks like now the city may begin to maintain it.

What looks like a half acre of very old trees is actually the Zion Hill Primitive Baptist Church cemetery on Murrah Road.

The area’s first Baptist church was in a small settlement about where Murrah Road branches off East Bankhead Street in the 1830s. The church had the county’s first school and the cemetery was nearby.

At some point, the church moved toward the present site of New Albany and ended up where it is today. The last known burial at Zion Hill was in 1912 and the cemetery seemed to just gradually be forgotten.

On Thursday, city workers cleaned the cemetery area and interested citizens say they hope to keep it maintained. They want to have a culvert put in the adjacent ditch to allow people to park at the cemetery, although there may not be enough space to do so without impinging on the burial area.

They also want to place a historical marker there giving the site’s history and listing the known residents buried there. While the names of about 20 people are known, there may be 100 graves in the grove.

The problem with determining the number is that all the tombstones were removed. And even if they could be recovered, there likely would be no way to determine where to place them. Someone with ground-penetrating radar might be able to identify where graves are, but that’s all.

The cemetery has a strange history.

While people are familiar with Moses Collins as the founder of New Albany, there was a separate settlement east of that. Historian Edgar Stephens said the settlement actually had an inn and a stagecoach stop for lines to Ripley, Pontotoc or Holly Springs.

Church members were said to meet in homes at first so the cemetery may well predate the church building, which was also used as a school.

Ownership of the cemetery is unclear from the early 1900s to about 1940 when it somehow became owned by barbershop owner Jim Hitt, who lived adjacent to the cemetery. Jim and Geneva Hitt had no children so when he died in 1972, claimants to the estate were distant heirs or even heirs of heirs.

The squabble over the estate was not settled until 26 years later, in 1998. While allowing the rest of the land to be dispersed or sold, chancery court determined the cemetery could not be sold. The chancellor designated the site the Jim Hitt Memorial Cemetery (although he does not appear to have any family members interred there) and authorized – but not required – the city to maintain it.

During the period the estate was tied up in court someone apparently believed the cemetery could be sold and accepted a bid with rumored plans to develop the land. According to a contemporary story, the owners of the land asked Heath’s Marble Works to remove all the monuments.

No once has come forward to admit trying to sell the land. Heath’s Marble Works seems to have vanished without a trace and no one has been charged with desecrating the cemetery. It’s also not clear why a reputable monument company would think it’s all right to strip a cemetery of its markers.

Actually, the cemetery has not been completely abandoned. Phyllis and Billy Stanford, whose home adjoins the cemetery property, along with other nearby landowners, took it upon themselves to clean the cemetery some over the years. Apparently no one else has.

When a story about the cemetery appeared in print more than 25 years ago, some families known to have loved ones buried in the cemetery said they would be willing to contribute to a fund to maintain the site and erect markers, but there was no organized follow up. Perhaps this effort will fare better.

Jennie Stephens Smith compiled cemetery records in 1944 and listed about 20 buried in the Zion Hill cemetery but the grove clearly contains many more graves than that.

Here are the known names of those buried:

Carl, son of M. F. and A. V. Rogers, born Dec. 6,1876, died Jan. 23, 1877, age 2 months.

Mary V. Williamson, died Mar. 16, 1852, age 52.

Martha S. Williamson, wife of J. H. Williamson, born Sept. 22, 1831, died Aug. 16, 1855, age 23.

Infant son of R. F. and A. P. Jarvis, born Sept. 24, 1876, died Oct. 15, 1876, age 1 month.

Eliza J. Cullens, wife of R. J. McCall, born Jan. 3,1830, died May 2,1857, age 27.

Rufus R., son of E. D. and S. E. Payne, born June 16, 1824, died Feb. 23, 1890, age 65.

Major W., son of W. and B. M. West, born Sept. 11, 1856, died Aug. 21, 1857, age 9 months.

Eliza M., wife of William West, born Feb. 20, 1836, died Feb. 28, 1857, age 21.

Isaac M. McCall, born Dec. 1, 1829, died May 16, 1858, age 28.

Hugh, only son of R. J. and F. J. McCall, born 1851, died 1852, age 1.

Sarah Bostwick, wife of W. J. Brooks, daughter of John and A. Bassett, Oct. 7, 1819, Jan. 28, 1839, age 19.