Into the woods: Unearthing clues to a once-forgotten cemetery

Archaeologist Luke Pecoraro took a step into the heavily wooded forest behind Philip Simmons High School.

 

His right hand gripped a suitcase.

 

His left hand clutched a machete.

 

With the blade in hand, Pecoraro and his archaeology team walked through a half mile of thick, unfamiliar brush, taking turns lugging the suitcase.

 

They dodged and ducked between limbs and branches.

 

The machete not raised once.

 

The team reached its destination amid a pocket of trees just between the school’s baseball stadium and a cluster of homes in Nelliefield Plantation.

 

They found it. 

 

A once-lost African American cemetery discovered more than a decade ago during the early stages of development in the Clements Ferry corridor.

 

A burial place for an unknown number of deceased. 

 

With only a few visible headstones peeking out from the dirt, the preservation team from the historic Drayton Hall plantation got to work. They wanted to determine, if possible, how many people might be buried here. 

 

They opened the suitcase, and lifted out a small, unassuming machine called a ground penetrating radar.

 

GPR for short.

 

Attaching the GPR to the bottom of a pushcart, Pecoraro rolled the radar over level parts of the ground, using its radio waves to ping underneath the earth.

 

The data on a monitor indicated there were more burial sites than the tombstones would show.

 

The team began marking sunken depressions of dirt with flags. They walked throughout the woods to identify signs of the cemetery’s borders.

 

Two hours later, Pecoraro made his takeaway.

 

“Just how big it is!” Pecoraro said. “I don’t know the exact history of the Nelliefield Church and the community, but that space is a lot larger than other cemeteries that I have seen in Charleston County.”

 

In his third year as the top and first hired archaeologist at Drayton Hall, Pecoraro, sporting a Boston Red Sox cap and mirrored sunglasses, marveled at the potential size and breadth of the cemetery.

 

He confirmed what others believed to be true - more people are buried here. 

 

“I would say more than 50.”

 

What is now known as the Nelliefield Creek Cemetery is still hidden by vegetation and decades of wild growth. Headstones with last names like Keith and Logan show engravings dating from the 1920s, with birthdates as far back as the mid-1800s.

 

“There are more burials (here) than the initial survey recorded,” Pecoraro said, “and those are only visible from ground penetrating radar or through more work; walking around and being able to see where the depressions are.

 

“I think we are on a better path toward delineating the boundaries to the entire cemetery. So after a couple hours of work, I think that’s a pretty good return.” 

 

Pastor Donnell Hopkins of nearby St. Paul Baptist Church, with his wife Kathyann, also trekked into the woods to shadow the team. 

 

“I think it is amazing,” Pastor Hopkins said. “I think it does confirm what we thought originally - that the boundaries are very large. So with the surveying team coming in, they confirmed everything we thought initially when we came out there.” 

 

Upon arriving at the cemetery, Kathyann Hopkins immediately pulled out her phone and made a call. 

 

“I was FaceTiming my daughter,” she said. “I was trying to find people I could FaceTime to show them where I was and to show them the markers that located unmarked graves.

 

“I know it might be a sad occasion, but it’s a happy occasion for me just to be able to see the headstones of my ancestors. I’m excited about it, and I want to do more, and I want our children to do more. I want them to be more appreciative of what our foreparents went through back in the day.”

 

More work is still needed before any concrete preservation efforts are made.

 

Pecoraro said the land has to be delicately cleared from loose debris to determine the location of all the burial sites, with more surveying and mapping needed to determine the cemetery’s outline.

 

But for now, Pastor Hopkins said it’s a start.

 

“I love history, and it’s kind of sad that we are finding people here in their final resting place that hasn’t been well-kept,” he said. “We are talking about having some kind of memorial service just to commemorate this time, because they deserve that.”