Shelby City Cemetery Project Continues to

Unearth Lost History of African-Americans

JUNCTION CITY Almost a year after restoration work began in the nearly-forgotten Shelby City African-American
Cemetery, workers continue to unearth and reclaim pieces of history that would have otherwise remained lost forever.
On Friday, the cemetery project took a big step forward with help from Cultural Resource Analysts Inc., a Lexington-
based archaeological surveying company that can analyze what lies beneath the ground with hard-to-come-by
equipment, such as ground-penetrating radar.
Russ Quick with CRA spent a large portion of the day pushing his subsurface radar equipment around the Shelby
City Cemetery land, located on the very edge of Lincoln County near Junction City.
The radar scans, which produce images of the ground that look like layer cakes, will be combined with additional
information obtained by scanning the ground with a moisture sensor and a magnetometer, Quick explained.
While the technology is impressive, Quick was quick to admit the method for gathering the raw data is less than
thrilling he has to patrol up and down a carefully measured plot, pushing a cart in front of him as if hes mowing
the lawn.
I keep threatening to get a Roomba and take the brain out of it and hook it up to an ATV, Quick joked.
CRA can only use its equipment to scan portions of the 2.5-acre cemetery that have been cleared enough to allow
the cart to roll freely, meaning parts of the cemetery that are still being cleaned up after decades of neglect wont be
scanned yet.
For the portions that can be scanned, the compiled data will result in a 3-D map of whats underneath the surface,
hopefully showing specifically where previously undiscovered graves are located.
Even though a more complete view of the data wont be available for several weeks, Quick was still able to point out
a few anomalies as he scanned Friday, clarifying the location of a black World War I veterans grave and helping
volunteers unearth the lost base for a headstone.
This has been a great day. Its been very, very exciting to see the things that have been hidden for so long, said
Cindy Peck, director of Eastern Kentucky Universitys Danville campus. The great thing about this science (is) it will
tell us things we could not otherwise know unless we dug up the cemetery, so its amazing to see what is underneath
thats been hidden for centuries. Its very insightful.
Work on the cemetery started in October 2013, when a genealogy club from EKUs Danville campus was in search of
a cemetery in need of restoration. Lincoln Countys Property Valuation Administrator David Gambrel was able to
guide the club to the Shelby City African-American Cemetery, which he rediscovered in the early 2000s while
assessing property for tax rolls.
In addition to the EKU genealogy club, the Boyle County Genealogical Society and the Boyle County African-
American Historical Society have also been involved in the project, along with numerous other volunteers.
Peck said in all, volunteers have spent more than 1,300 hours working to clear away undergrowth and clean up the
cemetery land.
Charles Grey is one of those volunteers who has been working at the cemetery on a weekly basis for around seven
months.
Basically, I weed-eat, I mow, and Im not too good with a chainsaw, he said. I try, but Im not too good with it.
Grey, a lifelong Danville resident, said working at Shelby City has helped him improve his health substantially.
I weighed 300 pounds. Now Ive lost 50-55 pounds, he said. My blood pressure and vitals are a lot better. So its
been a godsend to me.
Grey has also made a habit of crafting canes and pointers out of some of the unique branches and sticks that have
been found in the cemetery.
Many trees on the land have been carved over time by vines that grew against the bark, creating intricate, spiral
patterns. Grey finds these natural pieces and turns them into sturdy, polished items.
I do it for the community, so people can have a part of the cemetery, he said. I dont want no money for them. Ill
never charge for them because they dont belong to me, they belong to the cemetery."
Trees have been hauled away, trash has been bagged up, waste tires have been disposed of, and multiple
headstones and other historical items that have sunk underground over the years have been dug back up thanks to
the volunteers time.
The history uncovered at Shelby City reveals many incredible but previously untold stories, Peck said.
The cemetery has graves dating back to at least 1879, and it was used until the 1960s, said Mike Denis, president of
the Boyle County Genealogical Society.
During the time between the last burial in the cemetery, which Peck said occurred in 1964, and when Gambrel
rediscovered the cemetery more than 40 years later, it fell into disrepair and became overgrown with trees and
undergrowth.
The cemetery is old enough that it is the final resting place of black slaves, many of whom were owned by the estates
of two men whose names are still known in the area today: Isaac Shelby and Ephraim McDowell.
Shelby was an influential governor of Kentucky who lived in Lincoln County; McDowell was a Danville surgeon who
performed the first successful removal of an ovarian tumor.
Unfortunately, well probably never know very much about the slaves who were buried here, Peck said. "But
because of (military records for some slaves), we do know who owned these men before they enlisted, and among
those people are the Isaac Shelby family, the Ephraim McDowell family.
Peck said some of the slaves buried at the cemetery may have even made the bricks for Isaac Shelbys plantation.
Carpenters, stone masons, brick-makers, farmers, people from all different kinds of trades were enslaved on the
plantations, she said. So this gives us an opportunity to try to tell a little bit of their story. As students learn about the
history of Kentucky, its important to have that. Thats our big goal.
Because of how poor many of those buried in Shelby City were, many of the graves are unmarked, while others are
marked only with field stones. In several areas, the only above-ground evidence of the graves is the depressions
where the earth has sunken in on top of the burial cavities.
The sad thing is that because there arent very many markers, we may never know beyond the death certificates that
weve collected exactly who is buried here, Peck said.
But Peck said it's inspiring to piece together the information that can be found, in order to restore some respect for
those buried in Shelby City.
Its a fantastic history puzzle, she said. "Its an honor to work on this project.
Joining CRA Friday morning at the cemetery was a 9th-grade science and engineering class from Boyle County High
School.
Teacher Jamie Hester said her students are currently studying waves, including magnetic, sound and mechanical
waves.
We thought this was the perfect opportunity to come and see waves in action, she said.
The students plan on returning as a group to help with the cleanup work, and they could also potentially take part in
processing CRAs ground-scan data in order to create the 3-D map, Hester said.
In 2013, after just a few weeks of cleaning up the cemetery, volunteers had identified a total of 72 graves. Today,
Denis said a total of at least 142 graves have been identified thanks to death certificates and some headstones
dating from before death certificates were available.
Volunteers unearthed a notably descriptive headstone just this Saturday, which marked the final resting place of a
woman named Maggie Carpenter. Carpenter died Feb. 8, 1908, at the age of 19.
She joined the church when 14 year(s) old and lived a faithful Christian until death and is now with Jesus at home,
the headstone reads.
It has the most information on it of any headstone we have yet uncovered, and this stone was erected pre-death
certificates, Peck said. So this is the only permanent record we have of Maggie Carpenter."
The true number of graves in Shelby City could be far higher than the number identified so far. African-American
Cemetery No. 2 in Lexington has around 1,000 people buried per acre, Denis said. If a similar ratio is found at Shelby
City, there could be more than 2,000 graves, he explained.
The results of CRAs ground scans could go a long way to getting a better estimate of the total number of graves,
Peck said.
In order to preserve the cemetery into the future, volunteers hope to form the Central Kentucky African-American
Cemetery Association, which could provide support for Shelby City and other black cemeteries that are similarly
disappearing.
They need a lot of work and theres no one left to take care of them, Denis said. Theyre almost abandoned and if
we dont do something to take care of them, theyll be lost forever.
Peck said she is hopeful that a historical marker can be erected at Shelby City, detailing the cemeterys history.
Future plans for the cemetery also include a sign and a fence, she added.
We hope that this restoration will be a model for others so this kind of neglect never happens again, Peck said.
Thats our dearest hope, that we can teach school children to be respectful of final resting places and proud of the
contributions of all people.