Mountain Creek AME Church is located in Sunter County. The main church building was constructed in 1890. The fellowship hall was added in 1990.
This building was on the property. The abandoned piano makes me wonder if it was the old Sunday school. It could have been an old school. I don’t believe it is an old church because tar paper isn’t typically used on churches.
African Cemetery No. 2 is the earliest recorded cemetery organized, owned, and managed by the Black citizens of Lexington, Kentucky. Purchased in 1869 by the Union Benevolent Society No. 2 and chartered in 1870, it served as a burial ground until 1976.
The cemetery’s notable residents include Oliver Lewis, the first Kentucky Derby winner, and Isaac Burns Murphy, a three-time Derby-winning jockey. It also contains graves of over 150 U.S. Colored Troops, including soldiers from the 54th and 55th Massachusetts Regiments.
After decades of neglect, the site was declared abandoned in 1973. Plans for development ended when surveys revealed over 5,000 burials. In 1979, Rev. Horace Henry Greene lead the restoration efforts of the cemetery and founded the non-profit to manage the cemetery. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2004.
Harmony Grove Cemetery is just located off W. Paces Ferry Road in Atlanta’s Buckhead. Dating back to 1870, the cemetery’s earliest burial was the infant son of James H. “Whispering” Smith, a prominent landowner whose estate was near today’s Governor’s Mansion. The last known burial was in 1982.
Buckhead Heritage’s rehabilitation of Harmony Grove Cemetery earned the 2009 Preservation Award for Excellence in Rehabilitation from the Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation.
August Krause was a German immigrant known for his stone carving work. It is assumed he did the first two markers on this page for his wife and his son. His daughter Charlotte was the last known burial.
Greenwood Cemetery was founded in 1903 in Louisville, Kentucky. It is a historic Black cemetery that fell into disrepair after neglectful owners stopped caring for it. In recent years, the local chapter of the National Association for Black Veterans (NABVETS) has volunteered its time to assist with upkeep. It’s estimated there are at least 800 veterans buried in the cemetery.
The NABVETS are there almost every Saturday helping maintain and improve the cemetery grounds.
If you would like to follow along to see the progress on the cemetery, you can find more info on their two Facebook pages. This one seems a bit more active.
Buffalo’s Forest Lawn Cemetery is filled with incredible works of art. It’s most famous marker is a mausoleum for the Blocher family. At the cost of $100,000 in 1884, John and Elizabeth Blocher built the mausoleum to remember their son, Nelson. Nelson Blocher died at the age of 37 after a long illness.
John Blocher was a successful businessman who ran a successful dry goods store and made money off real estate foreclosures. His son worked in shoe manufacturing but enjoyed traveling the world.
Supposedly Nelson fell in love with a maid named Katherine Sullivan. His parents disapproved and sent him away to Italy. Supposedly the parents let Katherine go and told her to never return. Upon Nelson’s return he became bereft that Katherine was gone. Only her Bible was left behind.
Grief-stricken, Elizabeth implored her husband to create a memorial to honor their son. John designed the mausoleum, which is made of granite. The giant tomb is covered by a dome of one large piece of granite. It sits upon five pilasters, allowing three panes of glass to be installed for three ways to peer inside the mausoleum.
He employed the talents of sculptor Frank Torrey, who carved the four figures inside the mausoleum out of Carrara marble. John and Elizabeth look over their son, who clutches a Bible. Hovering above Nelson is an angel who reportedly looks like Katherine.Radiating from the mausoleum are three granite benches with each of the Blocher’s name etched into the bench.
Whether the story is true or a fable, it is clear the Blochers wanted their son to be memorialized in a grand way.
Frank Lloyd Wright designed the Blue Sky Mausoleum for Darwin D. Martin, a Buffalo businessman who worked for the Larkin Soap Company. The mausoleum is located in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York. The mausoleum was the fourth and final design Wright did at the request of Martin, even though it wasn’t built until 2004.
Martin’s brother recommended Wright to Martin to build the Larkin Administration Building for the Company. This endeavor launched a thirty-year friendship, during which Martin asked Wright to design his personal home in Buffalo and their summer home, Graycliff, which overlooked Lake Erie. Martin frequently loaned money to Wright. Unfortunately, he died destitute after he lost millions in the 1929 stock market crash.
Wright designed the Blue Sky Mausoleum in 1928 as the final resting place of Martin and his family. Unfortunately, Martin died in 1935, and his family was unable to afford the mausoleum. In fact, the Martin family plot was unmarked for decades.
“…a burial facing the open sky. The whole could not fail of noble effect.”
Frank Lloyd Wright
Blue Sky Mausoleum was not built until 2004. Forest Lawn Cemetery commissioned Anthony Puttnam, a Wright apprentice, to build the mausoleum. It was built upon the ideas shared in letters between Martin and Wright. The main marker highlights a quote by Wright to Martin about the mausoleum: “…a burial facing the open sky. The whole could not fail of noble effect.” It incorporates the organic architecture for which Wright was known.
Currently, six people are entombed in the mausoleum. According to the Blue Sky Mausoleum website, a total of 24 spaces are available.
