ACPA - Cemetery Restoration Projects

Norman Urquhart Family Cemetery
Restoration Project
Montgomery County, Alabama

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by H. T. "Ted" Urquhart, Jr., February 5, 2004

My Aunt Jennie introduced me to genealogy during the early 1960's - she had traced our lineage back to Norman & Janet Urquhart who left Scotland as young adults, arriving in Wilmington, NC in 1774, went up the Cape Fear, bought land on Buies Creek and raised a family. They remained in and around Buies Creek until after the War of 1812 and then Norman & Janet, in their late 60's or early 70's, and the majority of their children and their families migrated to Georgia briefly and ultimately purchased land in the "Wild West" of Alabama near present-day Pine Level in Montgomery County in Nov 1819 - a month before statehood.

The Urquhart Family Cemetery Preservation Association

First Janet and then Norman died and were buried on their land. Later, children and their families were also buried there. Families moved away and soon the location of the cemetery became "lost" to their descendants - and everyone else. Aunt Jennie and others searched and searched for the cemetery in the 60's but never found it. However, other descendants began the search during the 1990's and I received a call from a cousin that I didn't know then telling me that the Urquhart Family Cemetery had been found and would I join them at the cemetery for a workday! Wow! Shivers! You bet I would!

22 "cousins" met near Pine Level on 29 Oct 2000 to help explore, clean up and restore the area. We found out that the cemetery is located on a hill deep in the piney woods, accessible only by an old logging road that the forest was well in the process of reclaiming and only 4-wheelers could actually get us to the site.
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Once we were there,.......	.....we found what the cemetery once looked like ......	....it was a far cry from how we now found it.


The cemetery was in the middle of "timber country" and the undergrowth was horrendous. Armed with saws, rakes and clippers, we began clearing the land.	There were no tombstones visible - only depressions in the ground where the graves had sunk in. We now estimate there are approximately 100 graves there - all in neat rows.	We soon cleared one area that was different than the others, there were brick copings around two of the graves.

Although we may never know for sure, we believe these to be the graves of our Norman and Janet. This mostly over-50 group were pooped out by lunch so we retreated to the roadside park were we had met, had lunch, exchanged stories and vowed to get organized to really do our ancestors' final resting place justice. Although none of us had any experience with cemetery preservation, we were at least smart enough to know we could do a lot of damage if we didn't get smart on the subject - or find someone who could guide us - cheap. Yes, we're typical Scots - proud but poor!

The Internet provided some answers - but not enough. I finally stumbled upon the Alabama Historical Commission and they gave good guidance - the first and foremost was to form a cemetery committee, which we did. Then came an announcement that the AHC and the Montgomery Genealogical Society were going to present an all-day Cemetery Preservation Conference in Nov 2002 - I signed up - and the conference was most educational. I briefed the rest of our cemetery committee and, loaded with this new-found knowledge, we got better organized. A clearing and restoration plan was developed and submitted to the AHC; they approved it and issued a work permit for the first of 2 phases. The cemetery was registered on the Alabama Historic Cemetery Register as well as the Historical Atlas of Alabama - Volume 2, the USGS' Geographic Names Information System (GNIS) and, later, on the newly formed Alabama Cemetery Preservation Alliance's Cemetery Register. The ACPA was formed following the Nov 2002 workshop, I became involved, and learned more "How To's" at the AHC-ACPA-MGS-sponsored Cemetery Preservation Workshop in Nov 2003.

Meanwhile, the forest is reclaiming the cemetery again while we try to raise the funds for the first step in our plan - to improve the logging road so that cars can drive the 1/4 mile off the blacktop to the site.

Once we can easily get to the site, we'll once again clear the site, put an archeologist and/or surveyor on site to determine its boundaries, and put up a fence. We're hoping against hope that tombstones may be found under the dirt.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Contact: Ted Urquhart

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