Hidden graveyard surprises archaeologists

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Hidden graveyard surprises archaeologists
Relics of pioneer past pop up in odd places

By John Andrew Prime • jprime@gannett.com • January 23, 2010

Urban archaeologists trying to improve Shreveport's Red River vantage have stumbled upon interesting traces of the city's past.

Last fall, members of a Better Shreveport, which hopes to create walks and historic pathways through greenways, walked through a heavily wooded area west of the Clyde Fant Memorial Parkway and literally stumbled on crypts and masses of moldering and broken tombstones. The stone sentinels are scattered along gullies in a hilly area historically part of Coates Bluff.

"It's all the way up the hill and down the other side," Jameel Damlouji, president of the Northwes Louisiana Archaeological Society, said after a recent strenuous trek through the site. He is president of the local business Supply America and coordinates with A Better Shreveport. "We're walking through depression after depression after depression, each likely a grave. They're everywhere."

The cemetery fills the woods nestled between E.B. Williams Stoner Hill Elementary Lab School and Caddo Parish Magnet High School.

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"It is part of a larger complex of an older settlement, even older than Shreveport," said Gary Joiner, a cartographer and historian who is familiar with the property. "That cemetery sits on top of a bank that goes down to an old steamboat landing. My guess is that in addition to the graves that are marked, there are likely slave graves there that are unmarked."

According to records at the Caddo Assessor's Office, the tract belongs to Caddo Parish Schools and has been called Calvary Cemetery No. 2 and Hopewell Cemetery. City directories from 1925 through the 1950s list the cemetery and its known burials date from 1898 to 1959.

A history published by the Ark-La-Tex Genealogical Association says the cemetery began as a one-acre purchase by the Hopewell Baptist Church, then expanded over the years to more than two acres split into three sections. It was part of a 23-acre tract purchased by Caddo schools in 1949.

Caddo schools Superintendent Gerald Dawkins, who said he's relatively new to the area and isn't personally familiar with the Hopewell Cemetery, said the system started an inventory on its properties in December and hopes to have it ready by the summer.

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/article/20100123/NEWS01/1230329

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"We plan to assess everything, whether it's empty land or vacant buildings, and certainly the occupied buildings," he said.

As a known cemetery that shows on maps and has known burials, the Hopewell Cemetery is protected by statute, but Dawkins said he knows of no plans for the site.

"We have property, and empty buildings, across the parish," he said. "That's the reason we are assessing and hope to get a handle on what we own, to make sure when we have plans we can consider all the variables."

Jessie Lafitte, now 73, lives just feet from the north side of the cemetery, where a tombstone propped against a tree is visible to students at Caddo Magnet High, visitors to Valencia Park and people driving by.

She's lived in the Stoner Hill neighborhood all her life and recalls burials there "from when I was a little girl." She also recalls burials happening there as late as the 1950s.

While Hopewell Cemetery may be the largest and best-hidden old cemetery, it is not alone. An old graveyard called the Pickens Cemetery occupies a parcel about the size of a large garage just yards from an unrelated church and a senior citizens complex in the 7400 block of St. Vincent Avenue, in the shadow of I-49. Another small cemetery sits astride the parking lot of the Military Entrance Processing Center on Mansfield Road.

Other cemeteries are abandoned, with all the graves that can be located moved to new locations. Fairfield Cemetery once occupied a corner of the intersection of Linwood and Hollywood avenues. It was sold to make way for a gas station and its graves were moved to the Carver Cemetery.

"Supposedly there was once one on Fairfield at Dashiel, and one at Fairfield and Boulevard Street, a vacant lot now," social historian and author Eric J. Brock said. "Nothing was ever built there and this may explain why, but I don't know for sure. And there was one on Fairfield near Jordan someplace, the graves of which were supposedly moved to Greenwood in the 1890s or so when Jordan was extended."

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The blog for A Better Shreveport notes that state archaeologist "Jeff (Girard) said Coates Bluff qualifies as an abandoned cemetery. ... It was the center of a settlement that rivaled Shreve Town."

"The best thing is to do our level best to protect the graves and honor the people who are there."
Gary Joiner, historian and cartographerr
On the Web

    * Shreveport city cemetery page
    * Find-a-Grave

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Brock said the Teacle Cemetery in south Shreveport was moved in the early 1980s to make way for the Inner Loop.

"It was located near where the Loop crosses Kingston Road today and the graves were moved to Forest Park. The Jordan Cemetery on Kings Highway where Bell Street once crossed was moved in the 1950s and the Walpole family burial ground at Monrovia and Thornhill was moved early in the 20th century. The Arnett Cemetery was located someplace in the vicinity of Elizabeth Street and Margaret Place but it disappeared during the development of that area in the late 19th century."

Numerous others were scattered around town "in what had once been rural areas vanished as the city grew and their locations became urbanized. We know of some graves moved to Greenwood, others to Forest Park and others elsewhere, but the whereabouts of the graves from the great majority of the known burial grounds and private cemeteries which once existed in and around Shreveport are unknown today altogether."

Joiner said these lost cemeteries "often are small and the families of the people buried in them are usually long gone, so they are not maintained. There might have been a church, and now the church is gone."

That happened with the Stonewall Baptist Church in Bossier City. The original cemetery was moved when Barksdale Air Force Base was created, and now its cemetery lies virtually overgrown in south Bossier Parish.

"Timber companies buy tracts and plant trees, and that's it," Joiner said. "There's quite a few cemeteries in the Kisatchie National Forest. There's probably some in the East Reservation of Barksdale. It's a common problem, not just here but all over the place. The best thing is to do our level best to protect the graves and honor the people who are there."

Joiner's advice to the Caddo School Board is to give the cemetery to another government entity, Shreveport Public Assembly and Recreation.

"That would protect it," he said. "Deeding it to SPAR would be a fine idea. SPAR is very good about protecting things. They're probably the best public stewards in this region."