The John R. and Susie Copeland Mansion is located in Birmingham’s Norwood neighborhood. The Copelands married in 1889 and had five children. John Copeland was president of Copeland-Inglis Shale Brick Company and held multiple positions at Alabama Paving Company. He also served as an alderman for the town.
Construction on the home began in 1905 and was completed in 1906 for $8,000. Today, that would be approximately $270,000.
Announcement in the December 22, 1904 edition of The Birmingham News.
Norwood began as a trolley suburb, but following desegregation, many white residents moved farther from downtown. In fact, Copeland relocated to Ohio by 1930. Once known as “The Placid Place” for its scenic lake and location north of town, Norwood, like many neighborhoods across the United States, experienced significant decline over time.
In downtown Birmingham, a recently restored Greyhound Bus Station serves as a reminder of Greyhound’s heyday. Built in 1952 by William Strudwick Arrasmith, noted for his designs of Greyhound Bus Stations, the Streamline Moderne building was one of the many bus stations that the Freedom Riders passed through to force bus desegregation.
The station was a key location for the civil rights movement. On May 14, 1961, two buses left Atlanta, Georgia, bound for New Orleans. White supremacists attacked the civil rights activists and slashed one bus’s tires. The driver was able to leave, but the mob stopped the bus and threw a firebomb into it. When the second bus arrived in Birmingham, they were greeted by Ku Klux Klansmen who had been tipped off by Police Commissioner Bull Conner, who told them they had fifteen minutes where they could freely attack the Freedom Riders.
After Greyhound moved operations in 2017, the building sat vacant until it was recently restored. The restoration uncovered many hidden mid-century details that can be seen today, like the bus marquee and the iconic silver greyhound.
I learned about Harmony Hill Cemetery when an account I follow posted images of a ledger stone with marbles. Marbles are one of my favorite folk art finds on headstones, and I will document them whenever I can. I was in Chambers County looking for the William “Rock” Jackson grave markers and decided to find this cemetery.
Note the brick piers.
The cemetery can be found on a dirt road west of Oak Bowery. The easiest path into cemetery lead me to what I believe are the remains of the Harmony Hill Baptist Church.
Research has not given me much information. According to FindAGrave, the earliest burial is 1891. The most recent obituary is from 1971, which matches the last burial in the cemetery. Jeffie Allison (1887-1981) is one of five members of the Allison family buried here.
One of the dozens of field stones in the cemetery.I believe this to be an old grave marker.This is the grave of Lucy Presley (1871-1927). Her headstone is a common handmade one that can be seen in the South. Her grave ledger is decorated with marbles. Close-up of Lucy Presley’s headstoneThese are the graves of brothers James and Luke Moody. They died within six days of each other in 1903. A records search doesn’t show why they died so close to each other.Patsie Jones (d. 1922)
If you know more about this church and cemetery, please let me know.
William Rufus “Rock” Jackson (1808-1892) was a gin operator, miller, and headstone carver who lived and worked in Chambers County, Alabama. Jackson became known for his carving and made many tombstones for his family and community members using local green schist or steatite. Also known as soapstone, steatite is mainly composed of talc, which makes it relatively soft.
Mount Hickory Cemetery outside of LaFayette, Alabama
Jackson’s markers, characterized by their distinctive green-blue coloring, can be found throughout eastern Alabama. Colloquially, the stone was also called “blue marble.” The headstones feature a variety of symbols with recognizable lettering. According to Cox (2010), who wrote their thesis on Jackson’s tombstones, the most common elements are hearts and fern branches, but there are dozens of designs in the over 400 markers they documented. Markers have been identified in four counties.
Mount Hickory Cemetery outside of LaFayette, Alabama
So far, I have documented the vernacular headstones in three cemeteries: Long Cane Baptist Church in Troup County, Georgia (top image), Mount Hickory Cemetery in Chambers County, and Concord Primitive Baptist Church in Randolph County. One thing I noticed is that not all headstones were oriented toward the east, so it made photographing the headstones a challenge. I will document more headstones during future visits to eastern Alabama.
Mount Hickory Cemetery outside of LaFayette, Alabama
If you want to know more, I highly recommend Monica Norton Cox’s thesis about Rock Jackson. It can be found here.
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Oak Bowery is a small community in Chambers County, Alabama, It consists of only a few homes and churches.
The Early Star Lodge #395, Morning Star Chapter #734 of the Prince Hall Free & Accepted Masons call this building home. It sits on the campus of the St. Luke CME Church.
The Fitzpatrick Baptist Church was established in 1897 in Fitzpatrick, Alabama. The current structure was built in 1909 after a 1908 storm swept through Bullock County and destroyed the congregation’s first church. The church no longer holds services but can be rented out for special occasions.
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