As a dozen or so volunteers arrived Tuesday evening at the African American cemetery on Vine Street, the small obelisk-style monument of Frank and Belle Watts awaited a good scrubbing.
It had been a long wait — perhaps decades or even a century since anyone had rubbed a brush or a wet cloth over their headstone in the Union Benevolent Society Cemetery that was established by formerly enslaved people a year after the Civil War ended.
Frank Watts was born in 1837, but his date of death was never recorded on the monument. His wife, Belle, was born in 1853 and died on June 8, 1909. Along with their names and the dates, the monument features the words “Gone Home” inscribed above a hand with the index finger pointing to the sky.
Those details became easier to read as Grace and Brendan Abernethy and their friend, Eric Qualls, who is visiting from Missouri, cleaned the stone to reveal a marble obelisk atop what appeared to be a granite base.
The Watts monument was one of several the volunteers cleaned during the Tombstone Tuesday activity organized by the Museums of Historic Hopkinsville-Christian County.
Also cleaned were memorials on the graves of Oscar Dixon, William Johnson, Walter B. Kelly, Rebecca Leavell, Stephen Watt, and one stone with no observable name.
There are 190 graves documented in the cemetery’s listing on Find A Grave. Most of those graves were recorded by former Hopkinsville resident Joe Craver. He’s slated to receive the Kentucky Historical Society’s Award of Distinction this weekend in Frankfort, where he will be recognized for his volunteer efforts at the Vine Street cemetery and elsewhere in the county.
The UBS graveyard covers approximately 5 acres. Black residents bought the land in 1866 to establish a cemetery on a site that previously was the town’s fairgrounds and later a Confederate camp during the Civil War, said museum executive director Alissa Keller.
After another African American burial site, Cave Springs Cemetery, was established on Greenville Road in 1913, the UBS cemetery eventually became neglected. Five years ago, following extensive cleaning of the grounds and removal of thick brush, weeds and dead trees, the city of Hopkinsville established ownership of UBS. It was rededicated on July 10, 2018.
Keller said the first tombstone cleaning day was organized in June 2020. It was a good outdoor activity during the pandemic, she said.
Volunteers will be invited this summer to clean more tombstones on the third Tuesday in June, July, August and September, and on a date to be determined in October. Updates will be posted to the Museums of Historic Hopkinsville-Christian County’s Facebook page.
Jennifer P. Brown is co-founder, publisher and editor of Hoptown Chronicle. You can reach her at editor@hoptownchronicle.org. She spent 30 years as a reporter and editor at the Kentucky New Era. She is a co-chair of the national advisory board to the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues, governing board president for the Kentucky Historical Society, and co-founder of the Kentucky Open Government Coalition.
