Category: GPR Work

By Dr. Rhondda Thomas, Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature, Call My Name Faculty Director, and Coordinator of Research and Community Engagement for the African American Burial Ground and Woodland Cemetery Historic Preservation Project

This piece is re-posted from the October 2023 newsletter.

Although Clemson University is devoting major attention to documenting the history of Woodland Cemetery and the African American Burial Ground Project on its main campus and honoring all who are buried there, the higher education institution is also seeking to preserve 15 grave sites on 33,000 acres it owns throughout South Carolina.

There are a variety of cemeteries on these off-campus sites, including those affiliated with families and churches, as well as some located in heavily wooded areas with graves that are both unmarked and marked by headstones.

Clemson is committed to working with researchers and local communities to document the history of all of these sacred sites and to ensure that they are protected. More information about this initiative can be found on Clemson University’s Statewide Grave Sites website.

1) The Clemson Experimental Forest (CEF) in Oconee/Anderson/Pickens Counties contains four sites identified and confirmed as known gravesite locations. These include the John Ewing Colhoun Family Cemetery, Lawrence Family Cemetery, Lieutenant William F. Grant Site, and Lieutenant Benjamin Lawrence Site. Acquired by Clemson University in 1954, the Clemson Experimental Forest encompasses approximately 17,500 acreage. The estimated number of graves in the CEF is approximately 255+, with 240 unmarked burials.

2) The cemetery for enslaved people who worked at Andrew Pickens’ Hopewell Plantation and the Simpson Cemetery site of Mt. Jolly Plantation are at the Piedmont Research and Education Center in Anderson/Pickens Counties. Hopewell contains three headstones, with most of the depressions marked by field stones. There are twelve headstones at the multigenerational Simpson and Taliaferro Family Cemetery. Like Hopewell, field stones lie within the space, denoting how old the graveyard is. Clemson University took ownership of the properties from 1932-1960, totaling approximately 4,400 acres.

3) The identified gravesites of the Edisto Research and Education Center (Edisto REC) in Barnwell County include three locations: one near the ruins of a church, another adjacent to a hay barn, and the third at the edge of an once alfalfa field. Clearing work was completed on these sites in February 2022. Old Church has identified five headstones, with 60+ estimated graves primarily unmarked. The Christmas Tree Field Hay Barn has an estimated 15-20 graves but no identifiable headstones. The V.L. Cave/Alfalfa Field has one Veterans Administration headstone, with an estimated two graves via the oral history of husband and wife. Clemson acquired the Edisto REC between 1936-1952, spanning approximately 2,360 acreage.

4) 1971 was when the university acquired the Pee Dee Research and Education Center (Pee Dee REC) from the Dargan and Pierce Families, covering approximately 2,300 acres of 20+ estimated graves. The Pee Dee REC in Darlington/Florence Counties includes one confirmed cemetery and two other possible sites. The Old Dargan/Pleasant Grove Cemetery has two headstones, with 20+ unmarked metal funeral home markers where some are legible to read. The estimated number of graves at the African American burial ground in the forest is unknown. The W. Standard site and Pitner Center Grassed area have no headstones nor estimated grave count. The former is potentially a family cemetery for a Revolutionary War officer where historical descriptions match the possible location, while the latter GPR survey found no evidence of graves despite oral history accounting for there being once.

5) The Coastal Research and Education Center in Charleston County identified the Old Mill gravesite as a confirmed burial ground. There is an estimated 50+ graves among its 325 acres. Clemson University acquired the land from 1932 to 1944. Though to be called “Old Mill” from oral history, the cemetery has three headstones.

For more information on how Clemson University works to preserve grave sites in South Carolina, please click here.

After the initial findings were announced in August, the site team conducted several phases of additional ground-penetrating radar (GPR) work that ultimately resulted in a new survey of the cemetery. That work revealed 604 unmarked burials—most of them clustered on the northern, northwestern, and western slopes of the hill, the area long understood as the African American burial ground. A substantial number were also detected on the southern and southeastern quadrants of the hill, the site the university used for reburial when it removed and relocated African American gravesites upon acquiring a court’s permission to do so in 1960.The GPR survey also detected unmarked graves in areas the team had not anticipated—most notably, it identified 12 burials at the crest of the hill, within the fenced area enclosing the gravesites of several members of the Calhoun family. The first of these Calhoun family burials, John C. Calhoun, the young son of Andrew Pickens Calhoun, occurred in 1837; he is the first known white person buried in the cemetery. This finding raises the possibility that African Americans were buried on the site prior to the Calhoun family’s acquisition of Fort Hill.

Our Process

Before announcing the results of the GPR survey, we sought an external expert opinion and consultation. Professor Lawrence Conyers of the University of Denver, a recognized authority on GPR analysis with extensive background in cemetery sites around the world, reviewed the team’s procedures and methods, finding them valid and scientifically sound. We await the site team’s full, final report, which we anticipate within 6-8 weeks. As part of this consultation and review process, Clemson faculty members Scott Brame and Brady Adams Flinchum, both of the Department of Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences, were also consulted to provide their expertise. Their onsite analysis indicated that it was highly unlikely that the GPR findings, or characteristics, were the result of naturally occurring elements—but instead appeared to be anthropogenic, or manmade. Professor Flinchum also conducted some additional GPR work at the African American cemetery at Hopewell—a means of comparing known 19^th-century African American burials to the unmarked burials indicated by GPR at Woodland. The GPR characteristics of the burials at Hopewell—the known graves—were consistent with the characteristics of those at Woodland.

First Steps and Next Steps

With the support of the Board of Trustees and the Legacy Council, we have taken our first steps. In addition to the GPR work, we have installed signage in the cemetery as well as adopted and installed appropriate security measures to protect the grounds. We continue to work toward stabilizing the site to address erosion. Our next steps follow on those: we seek the guidance of African American community leaders—our goal is not just transparency, but collaboration and partnership. Professor Rhondda Thomas  has helped to form a Community Engagement Council, with members representing Clemson-Central, Anderson, Pendleton and Oconee County. They will help guide us in the preservation and memorialization of the site. She is also working with the local community to identify family members who may have ancestors buried in the unmarked graves.

Similarly, our research will continue. We remain committed to a full, truthful account of the cemetery, a process that will take time, diligence, and collaboration—but we have hired a faculty member dedicated solely to this work, Dr. Sara Collini. And beginning early next year, we will transition toward a more interactive and dynamic web presence—a fuller website that will continue to allow us to share documents and other archival material via our Timeline, but will also give us the capacity to develop our content and our communication and engagement with our campus and our community.

Return to Woodland Cemetery Website