Report Prepared by: Dr. Dan L. Morrill - Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission

Charlotte, North Carolina: Top photograph: Grave stones at the Slave Cemetery on the W.T. Alexander Plantation which operated from 1824-1865.

The middle grave stone is for Solomon and Violet Alexander.
The marker was placed in memory of W. T. Alexander's first slaves by their children.
It reads:

"Our father and Mother
Soloman Alexander
died May 18, 1864
aged 64 years

Violet Alexander
died August 16, 1888
aged 83 years"

Photograph credit: Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmark Commission.

Left photograph: Gate and fence around the Slave Cemetery.

Right photograph: Historic marker about the W. T. Alexander Plantation Slave Cemetery.
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One tombstone marks the resting place of a slave named Violet, who must have had a relatively close relationship with the family to merit a memorial.

Violet and another slave, Solomon are mentioned in Alexander's will. It was Alexander's wish that Violet and Solomon remain on the plantation to care for his widow and be supported by his estate.

A portion of the main UNC Charlotte University campus is composed of land that was previously the W.T. Alexander plantation. (Some of the land was eventually gifted to the University of North Carolina at Charlotte by William’s wife, Mary C. Alexander.)

W.T. Alexander owned and operated a cotton plantation that reached 935 acres at its height and enslaved at least 30 individuals. His plantation was one of the largest in Mecklenburg County, by the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861.

Today, this slave cemetery is part of the property of the Thornberry apartment complex. There are at least 30 graves marked with rocks at the head and foot.

This cemetery, and the corresponding W.T. Alexander House (the plantation), are listed with the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Landmarks Commission.

The property known as the Alexander Slave Cemetery is located to the south side of Mallard Creek Church Road just west of its intersection with Highway US 29 (just behind the Jack in the Box and the Exxon and 7-Eleven at the corner of Mallard Creek Church Road and North Tryon St.)

Because of the nature of the census records, and the inaccessibility of more accurate family records, it is not possible to know exactly how many slaves were buried in this cemetery.

Estimates have ranged as high as 50 persons, and from the available data, it is not liberal to assume that there may be 25-30 persons interred there.

Only two headstones have been placed in this cemetery, and the most legible one was broken by a fallen tree.

About two dozen common fieldstones stand upright, embedded into the ground, scattered around the two cut markers, and mark the locations of the other graves.

The stones are of types that are indigenous to the area, and are not shaped or marked in any way. They were probably picked up off the ground on the day of the funeral, and simply placed at the head of the grave.

Probably many more have fallen or sunken into the ground and are no longer visible. No one really knows how many slaves rest beneath the periwinkle amongst the trees.

The universals known about the burial customs of slaves are that the dead were usually buried at night, and the ceremony of the funeral and the act of burial were not performed on the same day. Slaves were buried at night because labor on the plantation took precedence over the interment.

The funeral service was often held after the burial, on a date approved by the plantation owner.

The slaves also preferred to hold the funeral service at a later date, and the delay of this rite allowed others to attend. The funeral was an elaborate service, and was full of much pageantry. Slave funeral customs were strongly linked to African customs.

The purpose of the funeral was to assist the dead in their voyage “home”, and a large part of this assistance was provided through funeral revelry. Graves were often decorated with crockery or the last article used by the deceased. 10

Tombstones for slaves are rare, and the two grave markers at the Alexander cemetery are the exception rather than the rule. J. G. Clinkscales, a South Carolinian who grew up on an ante-bellum plantation, wrote about a particular slave, Unc’ Essick, in his memoirs. Unc’ Essick was a faithful and well liked slave according to Clinkscales’s account. However, when Unc’ Essick, the “faithful slave, the patient teacher, the colored gentleman” drowned, he was buried in an unmarked grave. 11
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Apparently, not all slaves were fortunate enough to receive a proper burial. Jacob Strayer, an emancipated slave who also grew up in South Carolina recalled that sometimes unruly slaves were killed in the fields by cruel overseers who would bury them where they fell. 12

This too must have been exceptional. However, the existence of a formal slave cemetery, on property specially set aside for the proper burial of the dead is also an exception.

The Alexander slave cemetery is a valuable resource to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg community. It is also an especially significant part of the Black history of this area.

At present it lies on private property, but the site is not actively protected from anything except trespassers.

The photographs taken by Charlotte Observer photographer Tom Franklin, January 26, 1988, show the site under a covering of fallen leaves. It Is also quite clear from these photographs that the site is very poorly maintained. Individuals who have visited the cemetery (on separate occasions),

Charlotte Observer reporter Steve Snow and Alton Caldwell, describe the site as overgrown and poorly kept. There are many fallen trees in the area, one of them ruined the most legible marker, the one previously mentioned. Snow, who visited the site in January 1988, noticed that logging was done recently in the area. 13

A site of this significance requires and deserves more care than the present owner is able to give it. In a region of the country where the natives are obsessed with their ancestry and their heritage, it seems incongruous that this burial place of the kindred ancestors of the Black community is not recognized for its proper historical significance.

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Source: Date of Preparation of this Report: June 5, 1989
Report Prepared by: Dr. Dan L. Morrill
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Historic Properties Commission
1225 S. Caldwell St.
Charlotte, N.C., 28203

http://landmarkscommission.org/.../alexander-slave.../