News
City cemetery holds key to history of blacks who served in the Civil
War, worked as slaves.
By Geneva Bell, Founder of Mount Olive Cemetery Historical Preservation
Society
Turning off Cumberland Drive onto Swift Drive, turn right onto Rollins
Drive. Traveling about half a block there are trees with no trespassing
signs, hi the setting of a well-established neighborhood lay
73
acres of Clarksville's almost forgotten but very important history, the
Mount Olive Cemetery. The cemetery has beautiful tall old tress, with
green velvet like vinca covering the whole grounds. The vines keep weeds
and other foliage from growing. There are beautiful and unique
headstones, tall and small, and some hand carved.
Dates in the cemetery span from the early 1800s. The oldest headstone,
that of James Hunt dated 1817, to the most recently buried, Private Joe
K. Bailey in 1953 and Oscar Jasper Holmes in 1958. Mr. Holmes was
a minister of Fifth Ward Baptist Church and also was the grandfather of
Daniel Holmes, who is a member of the cemetery's preservation society.
Mr. Robert Davis has owned the land since his mother willed it to him.
She bought it from Mrs. Martha E. Bradley in 1943. Mrs. Bradley, in
turn, had received the land from J.H. Unseld back in 1938. Where
Mr. Unseld obtained it is still a mystery we are trying to solve. Mr.
Davis had not been to the cemetery for more than 40 years.
On a school assignment, I stumbled on it with the help of Jill Hastings
from the Montgomery County Archives. I was originally looking for
another site, supposed to be on Forest Street. No longer there, like
many black and white cemeteries in Clarksville, it had vanished.
Since that day, more than four years ago, a lot of work has been put in
to preserve Mount Olive, a part of Clarksville's history.
Erin Hinton, neighbor of Mount Olive, and students of African-American
study research, a course formerly taught by Dr. Nancy Dawson at APSU,
worked with Dr. Freeland of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville to
identify burials with underground radar. He has been able to identify
nearly 900 adult gravesites underground as compared to about 200
headstones and unmarked graves, not counting children, in the cemetery.
As of today, the underground survey is about two-thirds complete.
This is just a small sample of our historic heritage that is in Mount
Olive Cemetery. There are headstones for veterans from the Civil
War as well as World War II . There are 24 graves for United States
Colored Troops — four from C Company, 101st, as well as the 12th, 13th,
14th, 15th, 16th and 59th troops. 5 There are prestigious
individuals who helped build Clarksville.
Mollie Dixon,
born May 1858 and died July 11, 1880, was the wife of Nace Dixon, who
was elected and served 14 years as alderman in the 9th Ward. He also is
mentioned in a July 12,1889, Leaf-Chronicle article as chairman of the
Board of Trustees for the Mount Olive Cemetery. He led the way for other
black elected officials. There is
Constable Sam Dabney
Luther, Judith, Chesterfield, Mary and John Dabney were all part of his
family and are buried there as well
Harry Martin, born Dec. 14,1850, and died Jan. 30,1919. After the Civil
War, around 1871, Martin recognized the need for religious training
among the youth and organized the first Sunday school in
Clarksville. The Sunday school was held in a little red brick building
on Main Street, between Fourth and Fifth streets and may be the
beginning of Fifth Ward Missionary Baptist Church.
Mary W. Carrey and Clara Carrey were slaves on the Batson farm of the
Cunningham area. They have two descendants living in Nashville.
Eimo Wisdom, grandfather of Thomas Wisdom, who is a member of the
Warfield Masonic Lodge 44, as well as a member of the Triple Nickel.
Last but not least are the slaves and servants resting in Mount Olive
Cemetery that helped build our great city of Clarksville.
In the past four years, all six local high schools' ROTC members,
students, teachers and parents with the direction of David Taylor,
Richview High School
Civitan Club; Big Boys and Girls Club; Make a Difference Committee of
Clarksville; Frontier Basement Systems; Layne Gebers and his family as
well as his church in Sango have helped with physical work in the
cemetery. On one occasion, it was raining but no one stopped working;
this is what I call dedication. I believe we have a lot of good people
in Clarksville. The AMVETS Post, American Legion Post and the Masonic
Lodge, just to mention a few organizations, plus private individuals,
have supported us financially. The Mount Olive Historical
Preservation Society has been recognized by the federal and state
government as a non-profit organization. We have an elected Board of
Trustees, with a president, vice president, secretary, treasurer and
executive director, totaling 11 members in the society.
Some of the society's future plans are as follows: On Feb. 19, during
Black History Month, the Triple Nickel, ROTC students from Fort Campbell
and various local church youth organizations plan to work in the
cemetery. Our Web site will be up by the last week of February. One
student from each local high school ROTC, including Fort Campbell, will
go to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., during spring break
They will be going to research the Colored Troops buried at Mount Olive
Cemetery. To support the trip, we will have four fund-raisers — the
first will be the first weekend in March at Kroger on Madison Street;
other fundraisers will be announced later. In the last week of August,
Brig. Gen. Daniel Bolger, assistant division commander (Support), has
agreed to have a formal dedication at Mount Olive Cemetery for the U.S.
Colored Troops that are buried there. The public will be invited.
Our long-range plans are to make Mount Olive Cemetery into an economical
tourist attraction with a walking trail and bird sanctuary. Further
plans are to acquire adjoining land for a park, with benches and picnic
tables, and possibly a black history museum with a gift shop.
Geneva Bell,
longtime resident of Clarksville, is the
Founder and Executive Director of the Mount Olive Historical
Preservation Society. She can be reached at (931) 552-
8026 or by e-mail at
genevab1941@aol.com