Some who know already.. that we have a huge battle going on with the City Council of Charlotte. An I have started a petition to SAVE Elmwood!
The situation has become much more clear on what and why they want to start with re-zoning for a road.
Creative Loafing wrote this in a Commentary it makes a good thought and brings out the history of Elmwood. Mark's Mom was an Alexander, and is buried out there amoung the Lion Tamers, the famous Actors etc. It should be very interesting at the City Council meeting on the 13th.
It's a serene place, Elmwood Cemetery. Among its 20,000 to 30,000 gravesites, both marked and unmarked, are the final resting places of famed Western actor Randolph Scott, two Confederate generals, two governors, two men killed by circus animals, a man who possibly fired the first shot of the Civil War, the first female editor of a newspaper in the US, many of the relatives of Stonewall Jackson, and another man who was one of the highest ranking black soldiers in the Spanish-American war.
At least, it should be a serene place. Nestled next to new development in the Third Ward area of , it's now being used more and more as a yuppie exercise/rollerblading/bicycling outdoor gym. An aesthetic oasis in a sea of concrete and glass, Elmwood's status as one of the few links to our city's pre-20th century history is in danger of falling by the wayside, due to vandalism, the aforementioned misuse, and short-sighted political opportunism.
Cemeteries are by nature places of rest. Part of the allure of Elmwood, besides the people buried there, is the layout of the place. Part outdoor sculpture garden, part history tour, Elmwood Cemetery is one of the few places in Charlotte's early history still standing, albeit in need of some repair -- the cemetery stands much as it did 100 years ago, although the trees and fields and one-and-two story stores and businesses that once stood nearby have been replaced by parking lots and skyscrapers. Established in 1853 after the older "Settlers" cemetery became full, a veritable history of Charlotte can be colored in using the graves and memorials that remain here, some crumbling, some fading, but all still full of stories -- and indeed, life.
Behind railroad tracks, on a hill, and sheltered by the looming steel-and-glass monoliths of downtown Charlotte, a walk in Elmwood still feels like a trip back through time. One feels the impermanence of life through the crumbling brick, marble, and granite -- somehow, the weather-beaten remnants gain an even greater beauty in their nature-aided imperfection -- ashes to ashes and all that. One imagines, standing in front of these crumbling remains, the earth these men stood on, the thoughts that must have gone through their heads.
Elmwood's sights help fill a void in 's pre-Reconstruction history, often overlooked in the rapid expansion the city underwent after the end of the Civil War. However, the Civil War-era graves provide the most visceral and researched window into the past.
General Rufus Barringer, a one-time Unionist, joined the Confederates after the secession of from the . After the war, he was sent North as a prisoner of war, where a chance meeting with Abraham Lincoln, who had known Barringer's brother, led the President to write a letter for Barringer, urging top treatment for his old acquaintance. Three days after writing the letter, died. Barringer was kept under wraps for years and years afterwards, as the close proximity of 's death and the letter on Barringer's behalf cast suspicion, especially from a Southern apologist.
Colonel William Johnston is also buried here, though one would scarcely notice without a tour guide of some kind. 's grave contains no mention of his military service, which may have been a conciliatory gesture to his brother, whom fought against in the war. staged an impromptu gathering for Jefferson Davis toward the end of the Civil War in downtown . After spoke, a weary took to the podium. As he finished, he was said to have been handed a telegraph by John C. Courtney of the local Telegraph Office. was heard to be horribly aghast at the message: President Lincoln had been assassinated.
General Thomas Fenwick Drayton was another eyewitness to history. At , Admiral David Farragut uttered from above "Damn the torpedoes, four bells. Go ahead, Captain Drayton." Of course, popular history has translated the above into the familiar "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" Captain Drayton was Percival Drayton, brother of Thomas Fenwick Drayton, a decorated leader in his own right.
Sometimes a grave in itself can't tell the whole story, as evidenced by the memorial to Captain Moses Humphrey. Capt. Humphrey is likely to have been in the gun crew that fired the first shots at to begin the Civil War. Humphrey was a Citadel cadet expelled at the beginning of the war for joining the militia. Ironically, he died in the Battle of Bentonville in 1865, after General Robert E. Lee had already surrendered. He suffered extensive damage to his arm, and later died of gangrene after refusing to get the limb amputated.
The Rev. Robert Hall Morrison, one of the early church leaders of the area, had three daughters who married Confederate generals. Mary Anna married "Stonewall" , Isabella married D.H. Hill, and Eugenia married Rufus Barringer. All are buried here in Elmwood.
What is now was once divided by a fence between the (for blacks) and Elmwood, which was for whites (it's now traversed by a thin ribbon of pavement). Even in death, it seems, segregation was a way of life. For instance, Charles S.L.A. Taylor, a black Lieutenant Colonel in the Spanish American War and one of the highest-ranking black officers in that war, is buried here. Ironically, a quarter-mile away or so, there is a Spanish-American War memorial, with graves for many of those killed in the line of duty. Their graves are semi-elaborate for the time, whereas 's is about a foot-and-a-half high, and barely noticeable, worn down by the wind and rain to a pebble-like, rounded hunk of rock. ( Foot note: In 1969 the Council removed the fence as a blow against segregation.
Other, non-wartime graves also contain interesting histories for those willing to do a little extra research. There's a grave here containing a relief of an elephant, and containing the name of John King, an animal trainer for something called the John Robinson Circus. The big draw of the John Robinson Circus, besides their exotic animalia, was the use of Brush Electric Light ("in many ways preferable to the Edison Electric Light. . .illuminating all objects with a soft, mellow, but surpassingly brilliant light, equal in intensity to the noon-day sun, a radius of half a league."). King was killed after being trapped between a train car and the elephant named Chief, just moments after telling the assembled crowd to back up, as he "wasn't going to be responsible" for any injuries incurred. The great beast then escaped, before being captured a few hours later. Chief would go on to kill two more people at a zoo in , and was then hung by cable from a crane, after a load of poisoned hay had had no noticeable effect on the animal. The event would later be chronicled by Ripley's Believe it or Not.
Charlie Houck was 60 years old and a lion tamer for the Melville-Reiss show, a circus of sorts. In 1930, Houck was mauled by one of the lions he trained, and the story was front-page news in the next morning's Charlotte Observer. Houck's arm, torn badly by the encounter, was believed to be the only major casualty of the attack. A few days later, Houck died.
There are also many, if not necessarily famous, influential women buried at Elmwood. The list includes Dr. Annie Alexander, the first female physician south of the Potomac River; Rachel Jones Holton, the first female editor of a newspaper in the United States (a political newspaper, to boot -- some 60 years before women gained the right to vote); and Harriet Morrison Irwin, the first woman to patent an architectural design in US history.
Part of the hidden-treasure aspect of Elmwood lies in the fact that there is little in-depth official study of the place. Individuals, including amateur historian Bill Hart, have led informal tours of the place, and have conducted reams of independent study on their own. (Hart is currently seeking funding for a more in-depth tour/map of the cemetery.) Part of the problem is how to respectfully unveil the treasures of Elmwood without putting them at risk. The city has placed a water fountain at the entrance to the cemetery, and while that seems harmless enough, some feel it could be sending the wrong message, presenting Elmwood as more of a park than a final place of rest. Many of the gravestones and markers here are a mere beer bottle or misplaced hand away from crumbling to the ground, and many have already fallen. (Unfortunately, outside of educating the public, little can be done with the markers themselves without the families' permission, often hard to get for someone who died 150 years ago.)
In researching this story, someone remarked, "Oh, I know that place -- the place with all the gravestones that look like they belong to famous people." Well, they are famous people. Not only in their times, but to the people in whose hearts they live on. That's the whole point. Elmwood has unfortunately become a home for joggers, picnic lunchers, and vandalism. Now comes talk that the city may have to "relocate" some graves to put in a new light rail system. Would anyone consider such a move if these were the graves of, say, relatives of local politicians or celebrities?
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We are gearing up very fast, pounding pavement and so on. Anyone who would like to sign the petition email me.
Xandria