Geer Cemetery

36.010467, -78.884219

800
Durham
NC
Cross Street
Year built
1877
Neighborhood
Use
Building Type
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The story goes that the Geer Cemetery - at times also called City Cemetery, Old City Cemetery, East Durham and Mason Cemetery - originated with the 1876 burial of an 11 year old boy working on the farm of Jesse Geer; he had been accidentally killed by a horse, and his family requested that he be buried under a tree near where he was killed.

Per Allen Dew's excellent Cemetery Census site:

On March 28, 1877 a deed was written selling two acres of land for fifty dollars to three men, the land to be used as a burial ground. The three men were Willie Moore, John Daniel and Nelson Mitchell. The deed was signed by Jesse Geer and his wife Polly. The deed stated that the land was to be used for burials and that the heirs of Moore, Daniel and Mitchell were to be responsible for the property. The cemetery was closed in 1939 after the health department inspected the cemetery and found that the cemetery was overcrowded.

Canvassed by Denise Lawson and the Durham Service Corps in 1992, they listed about 100 markers. In 2003, Carrie McNair and several volunteers extracted burials from the death records located in the Vital Records office. Durham County began issuing death certificates in 1908 and North Carolina law has required death certificates only since 1913. Thus, there were over 35 or more years of additional burials that were unrecorded except for whatever tombstones have survived.

Dew lists 1530 names associated with the cemetery; the cemetery was already in poor condition by the beginning of the 20th century, as noted by the Durham Sun:


The Durham Sun - January 15, 1900
Colored Burying Ground North of City Need Attention.

The colored burying grounds, or cemetery, just beyond Mr. F. C. Geer's, out on the Roxboro road, is in rather bad shape. Numbers of the graves have sunken in, and in some instances not a thing can be seen to even indicate exactly where some of the graves are located. There are traces of where fire has recently burned the grass and straw over a portion of the burying ground, and several of the pine boards at the head and foot of the graves were burned, destroying all mark to show where the graves were.

A gentleman tells us that not very long ago, on one of the head boards he noticed that some vandal had written some very unbecoming words. As soon as the gentleman saw it, he very properly set about to erase them and succeeded in doing so. A person, be he white or colored, that would stoop to such a despicable act, is mean enough to do anything and is not entitled to the respect of decent people.

The burying ground certainly needs attention. Interments are still being made there, some having taken place during the month of December. A year or so ago we mentioned the fact that this burying ground should be attended to, but nothing has been done, and in consequence it is rapidly going to ruin.


Things didn't get much better after that; part of the issue has been that, after the original Orange County deed, there was no conveyance of the property to heirs or others - so the property is listed with the County as "Unknown Owner."

The Friends of Geer Cemetery was formed in 2003 to help clean up the abandoned and overgrown cemetery, establish title, and provide for maintenance - they erected the new sign at the top of this post. Several projects have worked to catalog the names of the burials in the cemetery over the years.

It's a beautiful spot, even if the multiple unmarked rectangular depressions in the soil can make one (ok, made me) feel like one is intruding upon a spot best-undisturbed. Yet the gravestones mark the resting places of many of the earliest generations of African Americans in Durham - including leaders such as Augustus Shepard, Edian Markham, and Margaret Ruffin Faucette; while many of the headstones are damaged or missing, the ones that remain are fascinating and affecting.











I was particularly moved by the epitaph above - I'm not sure I've ever seen one so eloquently imbued with the sorrow of the living:

I thought that I could give him up.
For God knows what is best.
And Heaven has neither care or pain.
But only blissful rest.

Dear saviour, come with tender love and comfort my sad heart.
Help me to say, Thy will be done.
Help me to bear my part.









Find this spot on a Google Map.

36.010467,-78.884219

Comments

Gary, refresh my memory of this area, please. Is there a small church very near here on the north side of Camden? I looked at the satellite image, but I can't tell if I'm just seeing what I want to see or if it's really there.

Anon

I think there is a small 1960s era church on the north side of Camden -

GK

This year's Preservation Durham Old Home Tour - to take place on May 7 in the Duke Park neighborhood - is expected to include Geer Cemetery. PD hopes to increase awareness about the ongoing plight of this cemetery and the important Durham citizens that rest there.

More information about the tour will be published at the date comes closer: http://www.preservationdurham.org/hometour/annual_home_tour.html

Thanks Gary. That would be the one, although I'm pretty sure it's older than the 60s because I remember going to Christmas services there as a young child.

Wonderful pictures of the cemetery. There's one in North Durham I wish I could convince someone to photograph like this.

I noticed the Mary Sparkman grave marker placed by Mr. and Mrs. Ben Duke in honor of her faithful service. Curious about the name, a quick on-line reference shows a Louisa Sparkman(born c.1867) in the household of Washington Duke in 1880.

Not to be too nitpicky, but . . .

I believe the last line of the verse is "bear my part". It looks like a "t" at the end, and it makes it rhyme like the line above.

Oops - thanks anon; should have caught that. Fixed now.

GK

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