Survey and Research Report
On The
St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church Cemetery
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The St. Lloyd
Presbyterian Church Cemetery |
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Name and location of the property:
The property known as the St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church
Cemetery is located near the northwestern corner of Colony and
Sharon Roads in Charlotte, North Carolina.
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Name address and phone number of present owner of the
property:
The owner of the property is:
Grubb Properties Inc.
Morrison Place, LLC.
1530
Elizabeth Ave., Suite 200
Charlotte, NC 28204
(704) 372-5616
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Representative photographs of the property:
This report contains representative photographs of
the property. Click here
for photographs of the property.
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A map depicting the location of the property.
The UTM Coordinates of the property are 17 515966E 3890297N
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Current Deed Book references to the property:
The most recent deed to this property is recorded in the Mecklenburg
County Deed Book 16228, page 124. The tax parcel number is
177-092-06.
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A brief historical sketch of the property:
This
report contains a brief historical sketch of the property prepared
by Hope L. Murphy.
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A brief physical description of the property:
This
report contains a brief physical description of the property
prepared by Hope L. Murphy.
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Documentation of why and in what ways the property
meets the criteria for designation set forth in N.C.G.S. 160A-400:
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Special
significance in terms of its history, architecture, and/or
cultural importance.
The Commission
judges that the property known as The St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church
Cemetery does possess special significance in terms of
Charlotte-Mecklenburg. The Commission bases its judgment on
the following criteria: 1) The St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church Cemetery
is a locally large and well-preserved burial site of African
Americans that contains graves dating from roughly 1868
until about 1926; 2) the
St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church Cemetery is located in an otherwise
highly-developed section of Charlotte and is the one of the few
reminders of the rural farming community that once stretched along
this section of Sharon Road; and 3) the St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church
cemetery is the only surviving remnant of St. Lloyd Presbyterian
Church, a Christian congregation that established its own house of
worship in response to the newly-gained liberation of African
Americans from bondage.
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Integrity of
design, setting, workmanship, materials, feeling and/or
association:
The Commission contends that the physical description that is
included in this report demonstrates that the St. Lloyd Presbyterian
Church Cemetery meets this criterion.
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Ad Valorem Tax
Appraisal:
The Commission is aware that designation would allow the owner to
apply for an automatic deferral of 50% of the Ad Valorem taxes on
all or any portion of the property which becomes “historic
property.” The current appraised value of the 1.0164 acres of
land is $318,700. There are no improvements on the property.
The property is zoned R-17MF.
Date of preparation of this report:
April 8, 2004
Prepared by:
Hope L. Murphy
Historical Overview
One can best
appreciate the cultural significance of the St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church
Cemetery by examining the plight of African Americans in Mecklenburg
County in the years immediately preceding and following Emancipation.
In 1860 slaves accounted for approximately 40% of Mecklenburg County’s
population.[1]
These bondsmen and bondswomen tended, unlike those in Virginia and
South Carolina coastal regions, to live on small plantations, and the
slave owners in Mecklenburg County most often owned a relatively small
number of bondspeople. About twenty-five percent of the white
population of Mecklenburg County held African Americans as slaves, the
majority of whom worked as farmhands or domestics, while a small
minority labored in the County’s gold mines. In 1860 only 139
free blacks lived in the Charlotte.[2]
Whites placed onerous controls on free blacks and enslaved blacks
during the decades leading up to the Civil War. Slaves were
barred from the streets after 9:30 p.m., were not allowed to buy or
sell liquor, and could not assemble without the expressed permission
of the mayor or town commissioners. Free blacks were limited
both by local and state codes, including the Free Negro Code of 1830,
which attempted to prevent free blacks from having contact with both
slaves and abolitionists, restricted their movement into and out of
the state, and forbade whites from teaching bondspeople to read and
write. By 1835 the North Carolina General Assembly had also
stipulated that free blacks could no longer vote.[3]
Charlotte’s City commissioners placed severe restrictions on local
free blacks and enslaved blacks. The minutest details of black
life were circumscribed. For example, blacks, free and slave,
were prohibited from smoking, carrying weapons, and from being
employed as clerks or retailers. In sum, whites attempted to
prevent African Americans from obtaining even the most rudimentary
sense of independence and self-worth in the pre-Civil War era.
After the Civil War, newly-freed blacks relished the opportunity to
build families not subject to white control and churches that were
similarly independent. Kathleen Hayes, a freedwoman, railed
against the practice of seating African Americans in the balcony of
Charlotte’s First Presbyterian Church and called upon the black
members of the congregation to “come out of the gallery and worship
God on the main floor.” The Northern Presbyterian Church
responded to such urgings by establishing the General Assembly’s
Committee on Freedman on June 21, 1865, which sent 40 white
missionaries and teachers to the South.
These teachers and missionaries faced many difficulties, including
inadequate funding and rejection and hostility at the hands of many of
the local whites. Undaunted, preachers like Reverend S.C.
Alexander came from Pittsburgh to help Kathleen Hayes and other
disaffected blacks establish Seventh Street Presbyterian Church, now
First United Presbyterian Church.[4]
Alexander joined with fellow whites Sidney Murkland and Willis L.
Miller in October 1866 to create the Catawba Presbytery, the first
all-black Presbytery in the United States. These courageous men
labored tirelessly to assist African Americans in creating several
churches in Mecklenburg County – including McClintock Church, Murkland
Church, Woodland Church, and St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church. These
newly-founded congregations provided places of worship for those
African Americans who wanted to remove themselves from their former
white-controlled churches because of the demeaning treatment accorded
black members there.[5]
Black congregants in white-controlled churches were listed separately
on membership rolls, were forced to sit in separate sections, and were
denied leadership positions.
Another primary
need among freedmen was education. In response, the Committee on
Freedmen began to establish primary schools, secondary schools, and
colleges. Alexander and Miller helped to launch Biddle
University, which was founded for the expressed purpose of “training
of colored preachers, catechists and teachers of their own race.”
[6]
Catechists, in this period, were candidates for the ministry.
They were often older men with little or no formal education. Many
walked from the 14 neighboring African American Presbyterian Churches,
like St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church, that eventually arose in the area.
They often traveled a distance of 5-10 miles each way, from the
churches where they performed duties, in the absence of more formerly
trained ministers.[7]
Biddle was named
for Mrs. Henry Biddle of Philadelphia who made a donation to the
school in the name of her husband who was killed in the Civil War[8].
Biddle, which is now named Johnson C. Smith
University, has been a
cornerstone of the intellectual, social, and spiritual life of
Charlotte’s African-American community. It has also had
remarkable regional influence on the Presbyterian Church. A
survey conducted in 1970 found that 60 percent of Black Presbyterian
clergy in the Southeastern United States were Biddle/Smith graduates.
[9]
Biddle would provide at least one of the ministers at St. Lloyd
Presbyterian Church. He was Rev. Hercules Wilson, a 1911
graduate of Biddle Theological Seminary. St. Lloyd Presbyterian, as
a small country church, was most likely Wilson’s first assignment.
Later he would serve at the larger and more socially prestigious
Woodlawn and Brooklyn Churches.
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Rev. Hercules Wilson (Far Right)
Photo courtesy of the Inez Moore
Parker Archives & Research Center, Johnson C. Smith
University |
The
Founding of St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church
In October 1867 a
group of African American members of Sharon Presbyterian Church
appeared before the Church Elders. According to the minutes of
that Session, these black members requested “advice and aid in
building a house of worship for the colored people.”[10]
Though the names of the petitioners, or the church they wished to
establish, are not in the Sharon Presbyterians minutes, it is
believed that these African American members were the subsequent
founders of St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church.[11]
These former
slaves, like others all around them, sought to define their freedom
within their own institutions and houses of worship. Reverend
Willis L. Miller, aforementioned as one of the founders of the Catawba
Presbytery and Biddle University, helped the charter members of St. Lloyd
Presbyterian establish their new church in the Sharon community.
Miller requested that the Elders of Sharon Presbyterian Church dismiss
without censure the African Americans who wished to leave.
Miller’s request was granted during the Session meeting on October 20,
1867, with the following words:
“It is resolved by
this Session that the names of all those colored members, who have
gone into this aforesaid organization, be other (sic) are hereby,
omitted from the Roll of Members of this Church without censure, with
the prayer that the Great Head of the Church may go with and bless
these our colored brethren in their new church relations.”
[12]
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Rev. Willis L. Miller
Photo courtesy of the Inez Moore
Parker Archives & Research Center, Johnson C. Smith
University |
On February 18,
1868, five trustees of St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church signed a deed to
purchase one acre of land in Sharon Township from Jonathan K. Ray.[13]
This parcel of land was located about a mile north of Sharon
Presbyterian Church, also on Sharon Road. The diamond-shaped
piece of property was purchased for $25.00 for the purpose of erecting
the congregation’s first church building and for providing a burial
ground. The deed stipulated that in the event of the dissolution
of the church, ownership of the property would revert to the Catawba
Presbytery. When St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church was founded, Sharon
Road was dirt; and according to David Lockwood, a white long-time
resident of the Sharon community, it was not a main thoroughfare but
“led nowhere.” Colony Road was then only a narrow dirt path that
led to the farmlands behind the Church grounds.
[14]
In the “Jim Crow”
era, St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church would have served many of the needs of
its congregation. Most of those who attended St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church
were poor and worked primarily as laborers, farmers, and domestics.
With educational opportunities limited, many remained uneducated.
When the Trustees of Lloyd sold the property in 1926, two out of five
of the trustees were illiterate, as evidenced by their making their
mark, in lieu of a signature. The harshness of lives of
the church members is also evident from their causes of death.
Many died early in life of diseases, like Pellegra (a vitamin
deficiency) and lung ailments like pneumonia and tuberculosis, which
are now largely curable.
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Rev. Hercules Wilson |
Much time would
have been spent in the church, which served, as most country churches,
black and white, as a place to receive spiritual salve in difficult
times and as a social center for the community. David Lockwood
and Mary Ruth Gibson, the latter also a white resident of the Sharon
community, each fondly recount that his and her families would
sit on their front porches in summer evenings and listen to the
members of St. Lloyd Presbyterian singing hymns.
[15] C.C.
Caldwell, Mary Ruth Gibson’s brother, recounts that his father
attended a wedding in the 1920’s at St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church. The
bride was Sara Alexander, whose father was an attorney.
[16]
Tom Kirkpatrick, another white resident of Sharon, recounts with humor
that Lloyd parishioner Lucinda Davis, who was in his family’s employ
along with her husband Walter, often lectured Kirkpatrick’s father on
how to be a better Christian.[17]
When the Church
property was sold to the Morrisons in 1926 the congregation moved to a
new location in Grier Heights, on what is now Wendover Road.
Grier Heights was, and still is, a primarily African American
neighborhood. St. Lloyd Presbyterian’s move from Sharon Township to
Grier Heights is tangentially related to broader trends that were present in
Charlotte and Mecklenburg County during the “Jim Crow” era. Neighborhoods that had for
many years showed a “salt and pepper” pattern – where blacks and
whites lived, worshiped, and worked in close proximity - became after
Reconstruction increasingly segregated.[18]
It is clear that in
the half-century following the Civil War St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church was
central to life in Sharon Township. In this rural area it
provided spiritual guidance, acted as a social outlet for African
Americans, and provided a forum for developing black leadership.
It also served, in a time characterized by racial animosity, as a
place of refuge, comfort, and encouragement for African Americans.
Architectural/Physical Description
The St. Lloyd Presbyterian Cemetery is located near the northwestern
corner of Sharon and Colony Roads in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Once part of the rural township of Sharon, the area has now become one
of the busiest and most sought-after areas for residences, shopping,
and business. The St. Lloyd Cemetery is situated on a largely level,
diamond-shaped one-acre lot, which extends along Colony Road to a set
of apartment homes. Most of the parcel is covered with mature
trees, except for the approximately one-half-acre that contains the
graves; there younger trees grow, and the ground is covered with
periwinkle. Periwinkle was a common ground cover used in older
cemeteries. Its invasive root system prevents other weeds from
growing, and its purple flower acts as a decorative ground cover.
It is probable that the plants that now exist there are
offshoots from those planted by the St. Lloyd Presbyterian Church
congregants more than 150 years ago.
Seventy-eight graves have been identified at the site[19].
These depressions are about two feet wide and range in length from six
feet to between four and five feet. Adults are interred in the
larger depressions, and the smaller ones contain the remains of
children. The graves, generally oriented from east to west,[20]
are located close to Colony Road and are grouped in what must be
family burial plots.[21]
The graves at the site likely date from about 1868, when the church
property was purchased, until roughly 1926, when the property was
sold to Cameron and Sarah Morrison. The Morrisons purchased the
property as part of a larger parcel that would become part of Cameron
Morrison’s grand “gentleman’s farm” named Morrocroft.
Very few grave
markers remain, and none has an inscription. The ones that do
survive are field stones. Most likely some of the markers were
fashioned from wood and have since deteriorated. There is
anecdotal evidence that larger stone markers may have been in the
cemetery but were later relocated.[22]
An explanation of any motivation behind such a move does not exist,
since no graves were to be relocated and since the property was, by deed, to
remain an undisturbed gravesite in perpetuity[23].
It is not clear whether the Morrisons agreed to maintain the cemetery.
Mary Ruth Gibson recounts that as a child her brother C.C. Caldwell
would compel her to visit the cemetery and help him pick the weeds
that had grown up around the site.[24]
There is no visible
evidence of the church building remaining. As of this date it is
unclear what happened to the church structure, though there is
anecdotal evidence that it burned down. Residents of the area
recount that the church was located approximately 200 yards from
Sharon Road and faced northeastward, toward what is now uptown
Charlotte. The church, according to David Lockwood, was a small,
one-story wooden structure, with a simple bell tower in the front.
[1]
Dan L. Morrill, A History of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County,
Chapter 4. An on-line resource:www.danandmary.com/historyofcharlotte.htm.
Ms Murphy produced this report as a student intern. She is
enrolled in the Public History Program at the University of North
Carolina at Charlotte.
[2]
Janette Thomas Greenwood, Bittersweet Legacy: The Black and White
“Better Classes” in Charlotte, 1850-1910. (Chapel Hill: The
University of North Carolina Press, 1994), p. 21.
[5]
Interestingly,
Rev. Miller had, prior to his conversion, been a slaveholder, and
had fought to maintain the institution of slavery. (Inez
Moore Parker, Historical Narrative, The Biddle-Johnson C. Smith
University Story, Charlotte: Charlotte Publishing, 1975 p. 94)
D.G. Burke, "The Catawba Story 1866-1980: A brief History of the
Catawba Presbytery. Sponsored by the Historical Committee of
the Catawba Presbytery, United Presbyterian Church, USA, 1981".
From the Inez Moore Parker Archives, Johnson C. Smith University.
[6]
Biddle University Report of 1871. From the Inez Moore
Parker Archives, Johnson C. Smith University.
[7]
Biddle University Report of 1869. From the Inez Moore
Parker Archives.
[9]
Background and Status Survey United Presbyterian USA Black
Ministers, Feb 1971. The Inez Moore Parker Archives and Research
Center, Johnson C. Smith University.
[10]
Minutes of the Sharon Presbyterian Church Session, October
19, 1867.
[11] The
prevalence of family names that appear both among black congregants
at Sharon and congregants at Lloyd, along with the close ties
between known members of Lloyd and living informants from Sharon,
lead the writer to this conclusion.
[12]
Minutes of the Sharon Presbyterian Church Session, October
20, 1867.
[13]
The church has been called Lloyd and St. Lloyd’s alternatively.
Though all deeds are registered in the name of Lloyd Presbyterian,
death records list the Church as St. Lloyd’s.
[14]
Interview with David Lockwood – Febuary 24, 2004.
[15]
Interview with Mary Ruth Gibson – February 19, 2004, and Lockwood
Interview.
[16]
Interview with C.C. Caldwell – March 2, 2004.
[17]
Interview with Tom Kirkpatrick – February 24, 2004.
[18]
http://danandmary.com/hisof charlottechap9new.htm
[19]
Most of the names of those buried at Lloyd Presbyterian Church are
not known; the following names were obtained from death certificate
searches. Mecklenburg County only maintains death certificates
from 1913 making research, using death certificates, prior to this
date impossible.
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NAME |
AGE AT DEATH |
OCCUPATION |
DATE OF DEATH & CAUSE |
DEATH CERTIFICATE NUMBER |
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William McKee |
63 years |
Laborer |
October 9, 1917
Edema of Lungs |
#665 |
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Eugenia Kirkpatrick |
38 years |
Domestic |
July 11, 1918
Pellegra |
#313 |
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Carie Walker |
About 18 years |
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December 23, 1918
Pneumonia |
#47 |
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Becky Sumple Walker |
65 years |
Laborer |
July 7, 1920 Neuralgia of the heart
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#114 |
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Winiah Knox |
57 years |
Laborer |
Mitral Regurgitation |
#1005 |
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Louise Campbell |
11 months |
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March 17, 1921
Whooping Cough |
#1158 |
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Joe Mackey |
48 years |
Laborer |
December 1, 1921
Cause Unknown |
#280 |
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Robert Harris |
About 46 years |
Farmer |
December 5, 1921
Tuberculosis |
#274 |
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Robert Stewart |
13 years |
Farmer |
January 18, 1922
Tuberculosis |
#283 |
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Walter Phiser |
52 years |
Farmer |
June 4, 1922
Cause Unknown |
#287 |
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June Price |
About 60 years |
Farmer |
November 16, 1922
Pellegra |
#290 |
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“Baby” Alexander |
Stillborn |
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July 19, 1923 |
#207 |
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Mamie Walker |
42 years |
Housewife |
January 23, 1923
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#153 |
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James Harris |
9 months |
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May 27, 1924 Colitis |
# 268 |
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Thomas Watson |
7 years |
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"Baby Boy" Price |
Stillborn |
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January 21, 1926 |
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[20]
“An Archeological Reconnaissance of the Lloyd Presbyterian Church
Cemetery: Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, North Carolina.” J.
Alan May, August 1993.
[22]
C.C. Caldwell, recalled that as a child in the 1930’s that as many
as 30 headstones were still standing in the cemetery. Mr. Caldwell
conjectures that the stones may have been stolen by vandals.
[23]
Mecklenburg County Deed Book 617, page 440.
