HBTSA-8: Mound Bayou Cemetery Clean Up & Inventory

The Mound Bayou Historical Commission and the International Order of Twelve Knights and Daughters of Tabor fraternal organization (est. 1872) is sponsoring an AmeriCorps NCCC (National Civilian Community Corps) project for basic documentation and clean up work of the historic Mound Bayou, Mississippi Cemetery and other historic properties.

The cemetery dates from c.1890, and is a

contributing property in the Mound Bayou National Register Historic District (48 acres) designated in 2013.   The total number of burials in the cemetery is not known, but preliminary observations by the AmeriCorps NCCC team indicates that there are more than three hundred graves. The team will spend the balance of the week in the field identifying and flagging as many graves as possible before beginning any clean up tasks.  The eight AmeriCorps NCCC workers are also locating the headstones, landmark trees, plots and plot dimensions by field measurements.  The oldest markers date from the last decades of the 19th century and include classical and vernacular monument styles.  Co-founders of the historic Black town, Isiah T. Montgomery and Benjamin T. Green, are buried in the cemetery.

Everett Fly is providing historic preservation, cultural landscape interpretation and field documentation expertise for the project.