Group wants more at cemetery

By Staff
Jonathan Willis
The mission has always been a simple one for Tom McKnight.
The Russellville resident began donating his time and resources last summer to make sure that 227 people buried in Foster Cemetery near Town Creek were given the respect they deserved.
That mission has not changed, he said.
"There is a Christian, moral and patriotic responsibility to honor those who are deceased," McKnight said.
The bodies of 227 people were exhumed from Foster Cemetery, which was on the property of Doublehead Resort, and were relocated to a site about a mile away that was donated for a New Foster Memorial Cemetery.
When Robbins Property Development, of Tuscumbia, sold the resort in 2006, part of the deal required the company to relocate the cemetery.
McKnight, a local historian began volunteering with the project and soon realized he had family buried there.
"Every civilized society has always honored its dead," he said. "We wanted to make sure these people were honored and we didn't want to lose a piece of northwest Alabama history."
When the project began last summer, archaeological team members thought there were about 75 graves in the cemetery, but only six headstones were visible. Another that had sunk into the ground was found after work began on the project.
After using remote-sensing equipment from the University of Mississippi, 227 burial sites were identified.
The cemetery is believed to have originally been a slave cemetery because there were several plantations in the area in the mid to late 1800s. The cemetery was used until about 1980.
After the exhumations began, the remains of those buried there were stored at Northwest-Shoals Community College. There they were studied and researchers tried to identify as many as possible. About 75 of the exhumations had few skeletal remains, however.
McKnight and many other community volunteers from Colbert, Lawrence and Franklin counties worked to identify as many people as possible.
Through research, they discovered that at least three World War I veterans and possibly veterans of World War II and the Spanish-American War are buried there.
"The potential loss of history, community knowledge and military recognition and preservation of individual, family, community and national identity is a serious matter," McKnight said.
Though the 227 bodies were carefully removed and placed in a new cemetery in similar placements, McKnight still believes there is more to do.
A road that has already begun to deteriorate and erode was put in place, but cemetery organizers believe that is inadequate.
McKnight also wants to make sure that a chain link fence is put in around the cemetery and stone markers are laid to make the graves.
"The wooden stakes out here are already falling and being torn up," he said. "We just want to make sure these people get the same respect and treatment that we all want for our families."