Burials at Oak Hill Cemetary

Untold Stories of African Americans buried in Oak Hill Cemetery

The mission of the Lawrence/Douglas County NAACP Community Coordination and History Committee is “to develop and disseminate a more just and historically accurate narrative of the history of racial relations in our area to continue the community’s efforts to address current racial issues and facilitate reconciliation.” Toward these ends, the Lawrence NAACP branch received a $4,500 grant from the Douglas County Heritage Conservation Council (HCC) in 2021 for a project titled “Untold Stories: African American Burials in Douglas County, Kansas.” Its stated purpose is “to locate, document, and make a public, searchable database of African American burials in Douglas County to preserve the memory of those individuals and bring their critical contributions to the history of the community from obscurity” for the public, researchers, and genealogists.¹ In addition, the Oak Hill Cemetery Potter’s Field Community Remembrance Project sought to identify and memorialize all those buried within the Oak Hill Cemetery potter’s field, a site for both Black and white persons who could not afford burials and grave markers.²

In regard to African American contributions, male laborers literally built Lawrence while their wives raised children and “kept house” for their families. Many women also worked as domestics, cooks, and laundresses for white families. Regardless of incomes and occupations, all men, women, and their children deserve to be known, remembered, and honored for their myriad contributions toward building and developing the Lawrence community.

The African American population in the City of Lawrence alone peaked at nearly 2,000 people (22.5%) in 1880. Therefore, writing a “more just and historically accurate narrative” of first- and second-generation residents remains a daunting task. Katie Armitage began this process with a foundational article that explained how over thirty-five selected African Americans built a community in Douglas County, Kansas.³ In 2017, I began to build upon her extensive work, in part, by collecting obituaries from online newspapers limited to Lawrence. While it may take another decade (or more) to document the lives of 2,000 Black Lawrencians, brief stories regarding over 975 people have been documented in Sections 1, 4, old 5, and 9, as well as in Sections 6-17 at Oak Hill Cemetery to date.

In order to explain the wide-ranging complexities of racial relations in Lawrence, written biographies of individuals and their families span low-, middle-, and upper-income levels. These biographies detail individuals’ multifaceted lives by documenting vital information scattered in online newspapers.⁴ To date, various opportunities have also allowed me to elaborate upon segregated education in elementary schools (1869-1954), the complicated politics of Black representation (1870-1914), Quantrill raid survivors, NAACP charter members (1921), and musical residents who performed on national stages. Based on these studies, a history of racial relations from the mid-19th to early 20th centuries may be interpreted.

Burials at Oak Hill Cemetery

Oak Hill has been a racially integrated cemetery since 1868 when Holland Wheeler laid out its first two sections.⁵ Its earliest rules did not use race as a vital statistic. When people applied for a burial permit, they provided “the name of the deceased, place of nativity, late residence, date of birth, date of decease, date of interment, disease, in whose lot interred, name of undertaker and size of coffin.”⁶ The initial costs of burial permits, wood coffins, and gravestones are not known.

When a loved one passed away, one (or more) individuals purchased a family lot. The earliest family lots in 1869-71 cost $50 (around $1,192 in 2024 dollars). Over time, prices varied and increased with inflation; for example, in 1910, a half lot cost $67 ($2,163) and in 1921, a full lot cost $151 ($2,587).⁷ These lots included extended family members, as well as friends, neighbors, and members of Black churches. By 1913, single graves cost $7 ($222) in Sections 4, 5, and 9 and $5 ($159) in Section 11.⁸ Those who paid for single graves were buried in their reserved graves. Those who could not pay were buried in potter’s field by friends or undertakers at city expense.

The high costs of family lots and single graves may explain why particular burial sites have or do not have grave markers. The size and quality of engraved stones and obelisks suggest what families could afford at different points in time. Like impoverished white people, many African Americans, even residents with good-paying jobs, have no grave markers, in part because their descendants had passed away. Some descendants purchased newer modern monuments for their families later in the 20th century.

Some family members arranged for soldiers’ shields from the Veterans Administration (VA) at no cost. These shields note the companies and regiments of Civil War and Spanish-American war veterans. However, some known veterans of these wars lack shields because the VA may only furnish a headstone or marker if the grave is unmarked. If an eligible veteran has a marked grave in a family plot, then the VA will not provide a headstone.⁹ (Flat markers were used later for World I and II veterans.)

Volume 1 of the Complete Tombstone Census of Douglas County, Kansas (B. Jean Snedeger, chairman, DCHS, 1987) provides readings of Oak Hill gravestones conducted in the 1980s.

Methods for Databases

Databases include these categories: Names (last, first, and maiden if known) organized by family lots and individual reserved graves with owners’ names. All birth years and places of birth (by State) are estimated because most enslaved people were separated from their families as children several times and did not know. Some children were adopted and given different last names from their biological parents. Race (Black and mulatto) and family relations have been identified and verified using census records from Family Search and Kansas Ancestry.¹⁰ Obituaries in online newspapers verify death dates but not always by race (“colored”). Some but not all obits provide birth years/places, cause of death, family relations, jobs, military service, and resident addresses. Lawrence City Directories list additional resident addresses, Dietzler/Walker GAR post 365 Civil War veterans, and jobs. Funerals were conducted by ministers of the Second (9th Street) Baptist and St. Luke AME Churches or from residential homes.

The Lawrence Cemetery Map allows people to use “Burial Search” to find the names of persons buried in each site.¹¹ Lawrence Cemetery Interment Records, 1850-1988 (at Family Search) were used to find and verify burial locations. Many but not all burials have entries at FindaGrave.com, some of which include photographs of grave markers. However, information is not always accurate; for example, a few death years engraved on gravestones do not match years in obituaries.

Notes contain additional information from obits, news articles, marriage dates (from Family Search or newspapers), and the burial sites of extended family members in other Sections.

Section 1, the oldest section, holds 10 Black family lots with 153 people, mostly 109 adults (ages 25+). Each lot contains 6 to 26 people. Examples of notable lot owners include Rev. Bedford Drisdom, Jane Ellis, William Gray, Jesse Dillard, Johnson-Cline, Frederick Gleed, and Alexander Gregg families. Seven (7) Black Civil War veterans have been identified here (with and without shield markers). Burials of extended family members are noted in other Sections (4, 7, 9, 15).

Sections 2 and 3 on the hill comprise mostly privileged monuments of prominent upper class white families—with two rare exceptions in Section 2 (ongoing). Grace Smith (1821-1880), enslaved by Gen. Zachary Taylor in Virginia and then his son Richard Taylor in New Orleans, selected Lot 95 for her burial site to be with her employer Mrs. Elizabeth Peabody Bailey.¹² Jane Mosby (1835-1907), formerly enslaved in Kentucky, survived Quantrill’s raid with her husband Andrew. She rests with Gurdon Grovenor and his family in Section 2, Lot 101.¹³ 

Section 4 was platted around 1870, but the history, development, and numbering of its less expensive single graves remain unclear.¹⁴ The so-called “Undeveloped Area” on the City’s Map contains nearly 1,400 single Reserved Graves that extend to the northeast with very few grave markers. (Its numbering starts at 101 with an 1870 burial.) Burials in Addition A (numbers 01A-148A) began in the 1890s. A comprehensive search of races here reveals a few Black burials (i.e., 14A, 20A, 31A, 58-59A, 65A) integrated among mostly white burials. (Row 22A-39A holds mostly white infants; row 40A-57A holds white adults; and 71A-84A holds mostly white infants.) However, for unknown reasons, single graves 85A-148A contain a nearly unbroken line of segregated Black burials only.¹⁵ Fourteen (14) Black Civil War veterans have been identified in Addition A and elsewhere in Section 4. The front area of Section 4 contains 13 Black family lots, including three with large, modern monuments (Simms, Carter, Frye/King). City physician Dr. John H. Young (1850-1916) and his wife Cora (West) Young (1867-1941) lie near the road. To date, nearly 190 Black burials have been documented (ongoing).

Old Section 5 was platted in 1886, although burials began as early as 1881. This section contains 29 family lots, plus 30 individuals in south Rows A, B, and C, for a total of 187 people. Examples of  prominent men and their families include: civil rights leader Charles H. Langston and Mary P. Langston who raised their grandson poet Langston Hughes (1909-15); Marshal Samuel Jeans, policeman Louis C. Bowers, Dr. Frederick D. G. Harvey, Judge John W. and Gertrude (Taylor) Clark, attorney Robert B. McWilliams, livery and hotel owner Lemuel King, tanner McCarter Byrd, pastors of Black churches, and elementary school teachers, among many other kinds of laborers. To date, 187 Black burials have been documented. Burials of extended family members are noted in other Sections (4, 6, 7, 9, 11, 15).

Section 9, platted by 1890, contains 449 single graves of which half (51%, 229) hold Black adults and children. Eighteen (18) Black Civil War veterans and one buffalo soldier rest here (four of whom have no shield markers). Other notable individuals include barber and civil rights advocate James R. Johnson, saloon keeper Daniel Stone, blacksmith Troy Strode, carpenter/Sgt. Henry Copeland, AME preacher Simon H. Barker, elocutionist Eva F. Ellis, five Quantrill raid survivors, and George “Nash” Walker’s grandmother and two uncles. Burials of extended family members are noted in other Sections (4, old 5, 6, 7, 8N, 11, 14, 15, 17).

Sections 6, 7, and 8 (platted in 1886), Section 10 (platted in 1904), and Sections 11 to 17 (platted in the 1910s) contain extended family relatives, mostly in less expensive single graves, because many families could not afford the cost of Lots in advance of deaths. To date, Black burials include 58 (Sec. 6); 26 (Sec. 7); 10 (Sec. 8N), including George “Nash” Walker, a  theatrical celebrity, in grave 18, next to George Carroll, a buffalo soldier; 64 (Sec. 11); 1 (Sec. 14); 53 (Sec. 15); 2 (Sec. 16-17) (all ongoing).

Potter’s Field contains over 1,000 burials for those who could not afford costs. See biographies for George Robertson and Isaac King (lynching victims); Peter, Eliza, and Margaret Vinegar; Elias F. Bradley; Edward P. Washington; Lettie Anthony; Edward Thurston; Richard Voorhees; Isaac and Hagar Allen; Albert “Shuck” Woods; Randolph Morgan; Juda Shephard; Anna Strode; James W. Hoyt; Alexander Clayton; Joshua Jackson; Henry McGee; and Harry Reeves (future link TBA). Four additional Black Civil War veterans have cenotaph shield markers beyond the technical boundaries of this field.

In regard to Maple Grove Cemetery, countless African Americans were buried here but no database has been created (to date). North Lawrence was known as the “Black belt” based on its Union Pacific Railroad workers, farmers, and truck gardeners. Several major civic leaders and their families have been identified here, along with 18 Black Civil War veterans. Examples include civil rights leader C. C. James, wealthy benefactor Ismael Keith, educators Jason B. Moore and Frances Deane Buckner, Progressive Club founders Samuel H. Johnson and Lula (Johnson) Irving and their daughter Ethel M. Moore, City Councilmen Green Keith and David Logan, policeman Dan Morton, and Hiram J. Johnson who founded St. James AME Church and the Deitzler GAR post 365.