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The route I took to this cemetery is
probably the longest route, as I had permission from the neighboring
hunting club to go through their land. There is a gate off of a main
road that would provide a shorter distance.
From Interstate 95, turn west onto Hwy.
17/Hwy. 82 and go .5 miles and turn left (south) at traffic light onto
Hwy. 17 South going towards Woodbine. At 1 mile, turn right (west)
onto Buck Swamp Road, about 2.7 miles down, the road will turn to dirt, at
3.9 miles you will see the sign for the Higginbotham Cemetery on your right. Go
through the hunting club gate about 1 mile and you will come to a fork in
the road, take the left. At .4 miles you will turn right and go .7
miles and you will make a slight turn to the right through another gate
and the cemetery will be in front of you. A small street sign a
little ways down names this road Oak Street.
This is a beautiful cemetery nestled
beneath tall, cumbersome oaks. Unfortunately it is not receiving the
care it should. Many graves are completely overgrown with vines,
weeds, bushes, and saplings. Some bushes were planted around the
cleaner gravesites, but this too is a bad decision because no one has taken
the time to keep these azaleas from taking over the gravesites. They
should be removed.
I believe this to be an old slave cemetery
as it has the characteristics of an old plantation site (the Miller Tract
is mentioned in deeds well before 1850), and there are
numerous graves that are not marked but have started to sink. There
could be at least 100 or more sites.
Also, there was no easy way to transcribe this cemetery
since the grave sites were haphazardly placed. What I
have done is grouped them and drawn an imaginary line down the middle of
the cemetery. There were about 4 groups on the left, if you are
facing the cemetery, and two on the right. This does not include the
numerous sites in between that were not marked. There is a whole row
along the back of the cemetery of gravesites with no markings.
Transcribed 13 March 2004 by Amy Hedrick.
On 20 March 2004, I went back out to this cemetery, as I
deleted some photos by accident, and found another group of graves.
This group could be included in group 3, but I have made it group 4
instead, as I only found one slab.
This cemetery would be a great candidate for in depth
surveying. |