Fact Friday 442 - The Forgotten Charlotteans: African American Slaves, Part 3
Happy Friday!
This week's Fact Friday comes to you from
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St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church Cemetery
On busy Colony Road, not far from SouthPark, near the northwestern corner of the intersection of Colony and Sharon Roads, there is a wooded lot. Passersby wonder-without inquiring further-why and how there is an undeveloped piece of property in the heart of Charlotte's high-value commercial and residential SouthPark area. The answer is that the site, maintained and protected by the Grubb Preservation Foundation, is the site of St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church cemetery. The church that once stood here is long gone, perhaps lost in a fire. All that remains is the unmarked remnants of the cemetery, overgrown, hidden in ivy, among the scattered trees and scrub brush.
St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church was established by newly freed-African Americans following the end of the Civil War. They named the church for abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. Seventy eight graves have been identified at the site, dating from 1868, and the topography testifies to many of their locations. The ground, carpeted with periwinkle, rolls and visibly sinks in many spaces. It is not a "slave cemetery," per se, but surely many of its occupants were slaves at one time.
The black congregants could not afford decorative headstones. Thus they had either wooden crosses (which are now long since disintegrated) or simple, unmarked field stones. Many of these stones now lay scattered throughout the ground. At least one other stone, shaped almost like an arrow-head, remains firmly fixed in the ground. The base of a stacked stone wall, covered in creeping vines, runs in a wide arc around the cemetery, hidden to the naked eye.
The only other visible sign of the cemetery is a single stone marker, the size of a shoebox, jammed beneath a large oak tree. Many years ago a small sapling was planted at the base of the collapsed grave. Now, over a century later, a massive oak has nearly swallowed the grave, pushing the stone at nearly a forty-five degree angle. The bottom of the stone is buried, but the top reads, in primitive, but clear, hand-carved letters:
ANNA ["RAY"? OR"ROY"?]
DIDE
JAN 30
[1868?]
DIDE
JAN 30
[1868?]
It is not clear what Anna's last name is: possibly "Ray" or "Roy;' or even something else. The etching in the stone is worn and unclear. "Died" is misspelled as "dide;' which is phonetically correct. In addition, the "N" in "JAN" is transposed. There is a grace and love in the simple forgotten stone.
The remains of the St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church cemetery, near Southpark, founded by freed slaves following the Civil War. The top of the buried headstone reads "ANNA [RAY?), DIDE, JAN 30" (photograph by the author).
Who was Anna Ray (or Roy?). And who was the hand that carved her gravestone? A father, husband, or someone else? We do not know. Anna also falls in the category of Mecklenburg's forgotten Charlotteans.
The man once known locally as "Blind Dick" is buried in another of these forgotten lots, somewhere in the county, presumably alongside the bodies of dozens of other African American slaves. Both he and "Anna Ray" must stand as proxies for thousands of other African Americans of Mecklenburg County whose stories are forgotten.
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Sources:
"Eminent Charlotteans: Twelve Historical Profiles from North Carolina's Queen City," by Scott Syfert, 2018.
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