Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

Helping Hand Cemetery (HHC) in Courtland hosted a Memorial Day Program on Monday, May 26, that highlighted the veterans buried there, as well as the people interred there whose grave sites and names are not yet known.

THE HISTORY OF THE CEMETERY

As noted in a printed history of Helping Hand Cemetery, it began as a burial ground in the 1800s for former slaves, sharecroppers, free people of color and Native Americans.

“Buried in HHC are more than 500 Black Southampton County residents including veterans from the Civil War to Vietnam; a Native American family and descendants; heroes from the police force; and members of the early African American community of Courtland representing Black entrepreneurs, musicians, religious and social activists,” the printed history states. “The people buried in HHC provide a blueprint documenting the rich history of Courtland’s African American community as well as their contributions to the town and to African American culture.”

For the past six to seven years, the HHC Board of Trustees has been making great strides in improving the condition of the approximately 128-year-old cemetery. 

Grounds Supervisor Elmer “Bob” Barnes made note of some of these improvements, mentioning the installment of signs and fences, historic markers, tree assessments and more.

HHC Board of Trustees Chairman Alton Darden could not be present for the Memorial Day Ceremony on Monday, but he did provide a letter that Barnes read.

“A special thanks goes out to our dedicated members who have supported the cemetery for many, many years,” Darden wrote in one part of the letter. “Your efforts have made our cemetery a wonderful place to visit.” 

Darden encouraged people to join the Helping Hand Cemetery Club membership. For more information, visit www.helpinghandcemeteryclub.com/membership/.

David Temple A.M.E. Zion Church Pastor Kenneth Zollicoffer helped open the ceremony at the cemetery on Monday with a prayer.

“We thank you, Lord, for bringing us to this occasion, for we realize and understand, O God, that there are those who went before us who paved the way, those who went before us, O God, who left a legacy, those who went before us, O God, who showed us the way,” he said. “We come to honor them today. We thank you, Lord God, not only for their memory, but we thank you for their ministry, and we thank you for their work. 

“And we pray, dear God, that as we honor them, as we remember them, that, O God, we would continue to honor their legacy and that we would show forth the things that we learned from those who set the path for us,” he said.

THE HISTORY OF MEMORIAL DAY

HHC Board of Trustees Vice Chairman Dr. Melvin Johnson, who is a U.S. military veteran, told those present at the ceremony Monday about the first recorded Memorial Day that was known as Declaration Day and took place on May 1, 1865, in Charleston, South Carolina.

“It was done in an area in which there was a mass grave for the Union soldiers that fought and died during the American Civil War ‘for the liberation of Black slaves,’” Johnson said. “It was those Black slaves in Charleston who marched out into that field to do that celebration.”

He said, “Now with history and time, that’s been forgotten. Various other iterations of that have occurred, and around 2000, the United States Congress passed a bill that basically established what we now know as Memorial Day, which really was a time for Americans, United States citizens, to reflect and to honor those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice for the freedom that you enjoy in this country. And they ask Americans to remember that, to give honor and respect to those fallen heroes.”

VETERANS AT HELPING HAND CEMETERY

Then Johnson noted that 60 or more veterans are interred in Helping Hand Cemetery.

Barnes read aloud the complete list during the ceremony.

The veterans buried at HHC are as follows: Herman Artis (1913-1985), Army; John Bailey (1936-2016), Navy; William Bailey (1910-1978), Army; Andrew Blow (1919-1958), Army; John Blow Jr. (1942-2011), Navy; Ernest Brown (1910-1986), Army; Lee Brown (1918-1981), Army; Samuel Brown (1916-1982), Army; Willie Brown (1940-1995), Army; Edward Bryant (1915-1969), Army; Robert Bryant (1914-1971), Army; Ryland Hood Bryant, Army; James Chambliss (1932-1986), Army; John Commings (1892-1931), Army; Bernard Darden (1926-1998), Navy; Horace Darden (1919-1980), Army; John Henry Darden (1917-1984), Navy; Shelton Darden (1947-2009), Army; William T. Darden (1908-1992), Army; Wallace Darden (1911-1976), Army; Elsie Eley (1896-1941), Army; Charles Evans (1931-2013), Army; Stewart Faltz (1927-unknown), Army; Kinnie Lee Faulcon (1915-1968), Air Force; Rufus Faulcon (1920-1961), Army; Robert Lee Gray (1930-1964), Army; Vernon Gray (1925-1970), Navy; Frank Harding (1906-1962), Army; James Hardy (1930-unknown), Army; Johnny Hargrave (1895-unknown), Army; Cornelius Harris (1918-1978), Army; Joseph Harris Sr. (1930-1995), Army; Harvey Harrison (1893-1977), Army; J.S.T. Hines (1909-1937), Army; Robert C. Hines (1895-1975), Army; Raymond Jones (1948-1969), Army; Charlie Joyner (1916-1948), Army; Otis Joseph Key (1918-1964), Army; Jethro Moore (1922-1970), Army; Emmitt Mason (1891-1968), Army; Vernon O’Vay (1925-1940); Henry Parker (1920-1994), Navy; Wilbert Parker (1924-1979), Navy; James Peterson (1909-1966), Army; Leroy Peterson (1923-1973), Navy; Thurman Peterson (1950-2005), Marines; Lawrence Reid (1924-1954), Army; James Scott Sr. (1914-2021), Navy; Scott Millard (1892-1959), Army; Ollie Scott (1893-1953), Army; William Scott (1927-1960), Air Force; Mack Smith (1920-1974), Army; Solomon Stevens (1837-1933), Co. B 2nd Reg. U.S. Colored Infantry; Joe Thomas Sykes (1891-1963), Army; and Lawrence Turner (1920-1982), Army. 

HONORING THE UNKNOWN AT THE CEMETERY

HHC Historian/Administrator Dolores Peterson shared the backstory on a new memorial fountain that exists at the cemetery.

“In 2020, Dr. Johnson made contact with an archaeologist called David Givens,” she said, noting that Johnson was able to arrange for Givens to come to the cemetery and operate a ground-penetrating radar. 

She indicated that HHC trustees and club members watched as Givens surveyed about 80% of the cemetery with the radar.

“Wherever he stopped and he pointed or looked at us, we knew to put a flag down,” she said. “When we finished, there were approximately 175 to 200 flags in the ground.”

She noted that it was a very personal day for her.

“As a child — and my cousins can attest to this — my grandmother would bring us here with shovels and have us make mounds for our great-great-grandparents,” she said. “So I knew that they were buried in a certain place, but I wasn’t absolutely sure.”

While Givens was there, she asked him to survey a certain area in the cemetery.

“We have another family area over there, and I said, ‘I’d like you to do this section right here,’” she said. “And sure enough, underneath the ground right there were the remains of two bodies, which I knew to be my great-great-grandparents. So I was just really thrilled that day.”

Following Givens’ work, there were almost 200 unmarked graves with unknown people in them in the cemetery, and Peterson shared what HHC leaders did next.

“We decided they may not have a marker, we may not know where they are, but we might be able to identify more of them,” she said. “And (HHC Club) President Alton Darden and myself set out on a year-long research project to identify as many of our unknowns as we could. Using censuses, family records, Bibles, even interviews, we were able to identify 100 of those almost 200 unknowns.”

She said these individuals’ names were added to the cemetery directory with the word “Unmarked” next to them, because it was still unknown where their bodies were located in the cemetery.

Next, Peterson decided to try writing a grant so the cemetery could feature a memorial to the individuals in the unknown graves, and her efforts bore fruit.

“Dominion Energy awarded us the funds to put together this memorial fountain,” she said. “We are very, very honored. The project was called ‘Shining a Light on Our Ancestors.’

“So we may not know all their names, we definitely don’t know where many of them are buried, but we’re going to light up their memories,” she added.

One side of the memorial fountain reads, “This monument was erected by Helping Hand Cemetery 2025 Trustees in memory of all who are buried here in unidentified graves and in memory of all who are buried whose names remain unknown.”

Barnes noted that it is a solar fountain as well, adding that “it charges up.”

Peterson encouraged those in the community who cannot find the burial sites of their ancestors to ask the older people in their families for the names of their great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents.

“Because they may be here (at HHC),” she said. “We don’t know. It’s a perfect way to continue the genealogy research.”

The HHC Memorial Day Program continued from noon-3 p.m. at the Courtland Recreation Center, where opportunity was given to learn insights and words of wisdom from 80- and 90-year-old family members and friends in the community. 

A “pictorial stroll through early Courtland” and refreshments were provided.