BLACK (Alexander) CEMETERY, (Carey Road abt 10 miles NE of Athens) , LIMESTONE COUNTY, ALABAMA

A study using the tombstone fragments and the various writings in Limestone County Tennessee Books relating to the known family history of the Alexander Black family.

First it is clear to me that this is the Alexander Black Cemetery as I see fragments of stone with indications of family members names and dates. I found nothing in the way of complete standing gravestones here.

Different story on the graves. Among the dense brush I noticed clearly adult size sunken grave spaces in rows with the foot of the grave pointing eastward, which is a common method of Christian burial. Other evidence I often see and found here was in place. That of using common long flat boulders standing on end and buried up to about half their surface. They were faced to the east (2nd coming of Christ) and also installed at the head, but sometimes both head & foot, or just the foot of the grave. In one very prominent adult grave which may be the grave of Alexander Black due to being the next grave of what I believe to be south of Sarah his wife. It has one of the fieldstones as they are called. It had fallen flat on the ground. I reset it back into its original place. I did probe the space several inches deep to see if a formal memorial stone had fallen and sunken into the soft grave, but found nothing. So if Alexander had a memorial stone set then it was probably stolen or destroyed. An active fieldstone is one indication that there was never a memorial put down, but not absolute proof. Often they would leave the fieldstone in place even after setting the formal grave marker, but most often they removed the fieldstone after setting the formal memorial.
Confirmation of that? From what I see I have determined that Alexander Black is buried next to his wife Sarah Crawford Black. He is in an unmarked sunken grave on the south side of her grave likely in a wooden casket since the grave has sunken. Hers is likely a metal casket because there is no sunken place or the grave site was tamped well. The base of her stone is still in place and fragments matching the thickness of the base were found with part of the inscription. I believe I have positively identified her grave and gravestone from the remaining fragment of a base & tombstone pieces that were found nearby. This is based on my interpretation of the fragments adding lettering in my mind to finish up the inscription. That conclusion is a bit rough in reality. From these fragments we know a birth and death month which heretofore has not been published anywhere. That is born Dec & died Nov. Perhaps this is the birth & death month of Frances Black Loggins. It is known she is interred also in this cemetery. If so then above photo #2 below (see photo with white labeling fragments of memorials above belongs to her and there was no Sarah Black daughter of Alex & Sarah.

The fragments as I have them detailed in red that are likely at least partly from those of the memorial of Sarah Crawford Black, wife of Alexander Black. We see this persons name was Sarah Black wife of somebody.

Resembling the parts of the red labeled photo this way and after studying the stone fragments closer I have come to the conclusion there are fragments from three different memorials there and not one or two. They are from different stones in spite of the knowledge that all are of the same thickness and a common stone composition.
With high quality imagery I graphically sliced and matched the fragments (#1,#2,#3) together comparing the sides and other small details and concluded it is not possible for the three pieces with part of the round tops on them to match up to one another no matter how many missing parts there are. Frag#3 & #2 have top left corners, not possible to be of a common memorial and the third one Frag#1 has a grove on the right side which would show up on Frag#1, the other possible match, but does not. The fourth piece (Frag#4) probably does match up to one of the other three, but I can't tell which yet. In that case we are dealing with fragments from at least 4 tombstones and possibly 5. The book authors erroneously concluded there was only one memorial all from the several fragments found.

Between the top of the stone here and the other two parts that have a part of the top of the stone in the red labeled photo there are too many parts of the top to be from one stone and I have concluded the 4 fragments are from of at least three memorial stones here. That is all the parts of the thinnest pieces. The large fragment#3 in this photo above with the top of a large B on it does not match any of the other fragments #1 & #2 but has the same thickness.

Conclusion on Frag#1: This person has an initial of "C." was likely a female daughter of somebody and died between 1890 & 1912.
Conclusion on Frag#2: The name is "Sara(h) wif(e of)" somebody (likely Alexander Black, unless the supposed daughter Sarah was married before she died.) and died between 1890 & 1912.

Conclusion on Frag#3: The large B letter is an initial and was probably what the book authors were referring to in the Sarah B. theory. This fragment does not match the other white lettered stone because that stone is much thicker proving their theory is flawed. I don't know that her given name was Sarah from the information on this fragment. Likely the B is the middle initial of Black for one of the daughters might it be for Frances B.(Black) Loggins or Mattie B.(Black) _ _ _ _ (whomever she married). It is also possible that this could be a fragment from the memorial for Alexander Black and this person died between 1890 & 1912 based on aging the style of memorial.

Conclusion on Frag#4: This person was born in December and died in November and died between 1890 & 1912. She was named Sarah Black or Sarah B. Black or he or she had a mother who was named Sarah Black or Sarah B. Black. This fragment is the left side of the tombstone and sat down a ways from the top of the inscription suggesting this might be an attempt to label the parents (such as Alexander & Sarah Black). In that case Frag#1 & #4 may be from the same tombstone.

The stone mentions her parents but her parents name is not seen here because of being broken off. The other alternative is this is Sarah the daughter and she was married, but that is unlikely as the other stone has more features matching the so called daughter Sarah B as mentioned in the book. These fragments are of the same thickness and do not belong to the other fragments detailed in the photo below. None of them align up, but it is clear at least two of the four of them are from the same stone. From the lettering we know they were separate pieces across from each other instead of adjacent.

That statement above I cannot confirm with the above fragments. While I found the piece of stone with the death date of Aug. 6, 1893, but it has no part of a name matching up to a Sarah B. The B on "Sarah B." is broken across the "B" and is the first letter of the name "(B)lack" I think. Another fragment has "Sarah Wife of" on it and belongs to the thinner stone with the red lettering image above and not the white lettering photo (thicker stone)
This assembly of matching parts has a different thickness than the other stone fragments and definitely all belong to the same memorial stone. No name is visible here just dates. The birth date is there but is broken across. I chose to chalk the inscription, a move that made the whole letters more easily readable, but did nothing for the fragmented letters. Holding them up into the bright sunlight is a better way but by the time I was ready for that the sunshine had gone behind the clouds and trees.

By taking a slice out of the above white labeled photo and then analyzing the date not yet deciphered across the top of  leads me to believe that 1842 is a possible year date but it also could be Dec 16, 1872 birth date could be correct, but not certain. I think I see elements such as part of a 7 that might also be a 4 and a 2 next right of 1872 and a 6 of the 16 but in this image nothing else. Obviously on the death date we see the G of AUG as the last letter and on the other fragment we see the A of AUG so that proves it is AUG since the word just before that is BORN. We are only missing the "U" of AUG. which is fragmented. The day in AUG is appears to be a 6 but might be a 10 and the year is clearly 1893 so the whole death date is AUG. 6 (or 10), 1893. If there was a daughter named Sarah B or C that died at age 23 Danny Black does not have her in his genealogy. She should be showing up in the 1880 census as an 8 years old. I do think it odd that this daughter and Sarah Crawford died within one day of each other and believe that may be suggestive of a mix up. That is there might not have been a daughter named Sarah, but just a mix up in understanding these grave inscription fragments. In other words the book suggest that a person by the name of Sarah was born in 1872 & died in 1893. The dates maybe correct and these fragments are from the monument to Sarah the mother or the daughter Martha Loggins. Sarah is the mother Sarah Crawford Black. There was no mention of any death of Martha occurring at the time of the death of Mrs Sarah Black.

Wayne Austin 23 Oct 2009.