How would you like if on a quiet Spring day you take your child to see his grandpa's grave and you get to the site and the cemetery is not there. Instead you find a hamburger drive thru where the graveyard used to be. How would you explain this to your child? How would you take the news that the final resting place of your loved ones has been disturbed and the fact that the developer not only did not move the cemetery but just built ove the graves. This has happened all too often, and yes sadly
to say it has happened here in Henry County far too much, and it's time for it to stop.
Through pain staking research we have found some of the sites in the county. One is on Willow Lane in a shopping center parking lot, this was a slave cemetery. The Dunn Family cemetery was and in our opinion still is at the intersection of Hwy 155 and Hwy 138 under a parking lot. If that is not bad enough, we have learned of churches being built over cemetery's and even roads. When you turn onto Stagecoach Road from East Atlanta Road you are driving over a slave cemetery that was paved over in the mid to late 1950's. A church on Panola Road in Henry County built Sunday School rooms and an Educational Building on top of the church slave cemetery. About one and half years ago we knew of two Glass family slave cemetery's located on Hwy 42 between Eagles Landing Pkwy and Brannan Rd. We got in touch with the County but to no avail. We were told that the cemetery's were moved. However, a search of court records found no documents to support this claim. To legally move a cemetery you must get the court's to order it, this is State and County law.
The CRG has contacted the county on numerous occasions about different cemetery's. The Kelley-Green Cemetery was severely damaged when the subdivision was built. At first the county told us that the drainage ditch was a natural depression. After reviewing aerial photo's of before and after the subdivision being built, the county believed the ditch to be manmade. The county told us they would need an archaeological survey done and the county would not pay for that. Luckily one of our members has done that work before. After the survey was done and posted on our web site that shows it was man made damage and that there is a severe erosion problem thta continues to this day. The county sent us an email that they wanted to meet us and show us some of their papers on it. Where did those papers come from if they don't do this type of work? The CRG held a meeting of it's senior members and made the decision that the county was just giving us the run around. They had all the information needed to fix the problem. There is a drainage and soil erosion problem. And that the cemetery is considered abandoned and by State and County law it is the county that must fix it.
We here at the CRG are dedicated to preserve the county cemetery's but we have hit road blocks when it comes to the Henry County government. When you see a cemetery that is in danger let us know. You can email us at Admin@crghenry.org
But also write to the county commissioner of the district the cemetery is in, after all they work for us and it is their job. Maybe together we can save our cemetery's. Remember a cemetery is a Special and Sacred place. It is where we place our loved ones to rest and where we can go and find solace and peace of mind. The developers are taking that away from us and the county is letting them. Cemetery's hold our past. We must cherish them and hold them close or we as a society have failed to be civilized. So what wold you tell your child as to where his grandpa is?
The Staff at the CRG
