Upcoming Events

June 21: Preservation Durham Annual Meeting @ The Chesterfield Building (701 W Main St)
September 22: Preservation Durham Fall Fundraiser @ Durham Central Park Pavillion 
October 7: Cemetery Preservation Workshop with Verville Interiors & Preservation Durham @ Rose of Sharon Baptist Church Cemetery
October 21 & 22: NEW Beechwood Cemetery Tour
October 28 & 29: Halloween in Maplewood

Director's Corner

Memorial Day in Our City’s Cemeteries

Recently, our nation celebrated the Memorial Day holiday; a tradition that evolved out of the Decoration Day observances that were born from the grief of the American Civil War. We paused to remember those who paid the ultimate sacrifice and gave their lives in service to our country.

As part of Preservation Durham’s commemoration of the holiday, I went with our summer intern, NC State graduate student and Durham native, Sydney Alston, to Maplewood and Beechwood Cemeteries to get some pictures for a planned social media post. After picking up a small American flag from Lowe’s Home Improvement, we ventured forth to the historic sections of Maplewood to visit American soldiers who died in the service, and are currently featured on our Maplewood Cemetery tours. When we arrived to the veteran section on the East loop, we saw hundreds of flags placed on the graves of Spanish-American War, World War I, and Civil War veterans (Yes, I very much understand that the federal government to an extent recognizes Confederate veterans as a product of White reconciliation at the turn of the 20th century through the government tombstone program, but that is a discussion for another time). 

We then went over to the World War veterans’ section in the modern part of Maplewood Cemetery, at the very top of the hill. It was a beautiful sight; hundreds of American flags had been placed on the hill. My great-uncle, Walter Renn, who was killed while liberating France from the Nazis in 1944, had a flag lovingly placed on his grave. After snapping several photographs, we got back into my Jeep and drove over to Beechwood Cemetery.

As we traveled down Fayetteville Street, it dawned on me that there was a possibility that we would not find flags adorning the graves of our heroes buried in Beechwood. That thought was confirmed when we arrived; not a single flag there.

Of course, our country has a problematic history when it comes to equality. Maplewood and Beechwood Cemeteries are artifacts of segregation, codified into law, that pervaded communities all over the South. For those of you who are unaware, Beechwood Cemetery is the city cemetery that was created for Durham’s Black residents; the “separate, but equal” facility that Durham’s Black leaders had to fight the city to get for half a century. Like Maplewood, Beechwood has a veterans’ section, started in the 1920s and first held the remains of Black World War I veterans. US veterans were buried in this section between the mid-1920s and the early 1960s.

Thinking about this in historical context is sobering. The men buried here fought in either World War I, World War II and/or Korea (there were several who served in multiple conflicts) and fought for American ideals of freedom and democracy, for a country that denied them those rights. Edward A. Austin, a Black scholar from Raleigh, wrote about Black service in the Spanish-American War, and described how Black men were proud to serve their country as an avenue to demonstrate their loyalty, patriotism, and fitness for citizenship. W.E.B. DuBois famously called on Black Americans to support the war effort in Europe during World War I, hoping that it would mean that they would finally get equal civil rights at home. That did not materialize. During the Second World War, Durham’s Louis Austin, editor of the Carolina Times, was among the leadership of the Double V campaign; newspaper editors who called for victory over the Nazis and fascism overseas, and victory over racial discrimination at home. 

These men served honorably during these eras, despite being treated as second class citizens. If that is not patriotism, then I do not know what is. 

To be clear, I do not know who put the flags on the graves in Maplewood, nor am I angry with them. I believe that it is a very touching gesture, and I am extremely grateful for their efforts to honor our heroes and I hope that they continue to do so. The flags not being placed in Beechwood is a symptom of another problem– that Durham’s Black history has, historically-speaking, not been preserved with the same energy as its White history. Our organization has been complicit in this as well. For decades, we held tours of Maplewood Cemetery, with no comparable programming in Beechwood. However, I am very proud to say that we are now preserving and telling the rich history of Beechwood Cemetery. We cannot do anything about the past, but we can do things right moving forward.

When Sydney and I left Beechwood, we left our little flag on the grave of Leroy Goldston, Jr., who had fought in both World War II and Korea, and who died in Chunchen, South Korea. It stands alone for now, but I am committing Preservation Durham to filling that entire veteran section of Beechwood Cemetery with American flags on Veterans Day, and preserving their history through our Beechwood programming.

If you would like to help with this endeavor, please consider donating to our organization, or contacting me at chrislaws@preservationdurham.org.

Preservation Durham Updates

We had a very successful cemetery tour season! PD Tour Guides took visitors around all three sections of the historic Maplewood Cemetery, exploring Durham history in one of the city’s most beautiful spaces. We are also very proud of our second Beechwood tour of Section A, which is the final resting place of the people who, in the words of W. E. B. DuBois, "upbuilt" Durham. ABC 11 did a story on our Beechwood tour, featuring PD Board President Melva Rigel, and PD Board Member Beverly Evans. You can find the story and video here. Our cemetery tours, including a NEW Beechwood tour, will return in October.

On May 20th and 21st, Preservation Durham held its annual Home Tour. This year’s tour again highlighted excellent preservation projects in Durham, and featured newly revitalized commercial and residential buildings in East Durham. The festivities kicked off with a Home Tour Panel, which featured a discussion about preservation issues in Durham. The Home Tour is the biggest event of the Preservation Durham tour calendar, and more than 50 people who love Durham dedicated countless volunteer hours to make this tour a spectacular success. Preservation Durham’s staff would like to express our sincerest gratitude for everyone who helped to make this happen.

Our fight to save the Milton Small building goes very well. At the first of the year, the city council voted to make preservation of the building a priority when soliciting proposals from developers. On June 5th, the council approved the Request for Qualifications (RFQ), which listed historic preservation as the second most important priority. If interested, you can read the relevant documents from the city here (scroll down to Agenda Item #20). This is very exciting, and it is truthfully the product of an outstanding team effort by Preservation Durham staff, our Board of Directors, members of our Advocacy Committee, and from our supporters who emailed and called city council members and staff. Thank you everyone for your efforts. However, the job is not yet done. Preservation Durham will follow this case slowly as the city works with developers to make a plan on to develop the 500 block of West Chapel Hill St.

The Scarborough House at 1406 Fayetteville St. is being saved and will be turned into a boutique hotel. This building was (and still is) so important to the history and legacy of Hayti and the Fayetteville Street Corridor, and we are absolutely thrilled that the building will find new life. The development is being led by Eagle Landing Partners LLC, and Preservation Durham looks forward to supporting this endeavor.

Our Annual Meeting will be held at the Chesterfield on Wednesday, June 21 at 6:30 pm. This meeting is open to the public, but only members in good standing are allowed to vote. If you are unsure of your membership status, please feel free to inquire at info@preservationdurham.org. Light refreshments will be served. Please RSVP to attend.

Our weekend Downtown Tours are up and running again! Please check our events page on our website for tour dates.

Interest Article

Cemeteries Are Making a Comeback
By Sydney Alston, PD Intern

Cemeteries have been an integral part of society since its inception due to the unavoidable nature of death. Through official and unofficial means cemeteries have served not only as repositories for the dead but for grief, memory, and legacy. They serve a utilitarian and symbolic purpose which for many years has not been recognized or understood by the general public. Though there has been a passive acknowledgment of cemeteries over the years there are a few select groups of people who have been willing to commune with its multifaceted nature. The first of these groups is mourners whose grief is processed through connection to their loved one's final resting people. Many groundskeepers can recount stories of cemetery regulars who would come to visit their deceased loved ones weekly and even daily. This group connects life and memory to a particular physical space where they are able to mourn and release. The other group also connects memory and physical space, but rather a memory that persists in the afterlife. The suspected existence of ghosts and poltergeists draws the intrigued to cemeteries hoping for a glimpse at something that proves the existence of life outside of the physical world. Stories of the deceased become stretched and molded and the deceased are defined by their final moments no matter how peculiar or brutal they may be.

 But in these last few years, there has been an interest in cemeteries outside of the somber and spooky. People are using cemeteries to connect with the lives and histories of the deceased and are realizing the importance of the preservation of physical resting places. On Tiktok, Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook, many headstone cleaners have risen to prominence. Outside of the satisfactory nature of watching a short cleaning video, there is also an appreciation for the respect and care given to those considered lost and abandoned. The preservation of these final identifiers is seen as a deeply empathetic action that highlights the importance of care by our fellow man. This “trend” caused many others to seek to volunteer at their local cemeteries to help clean and preserve headstones. But in my personal opinion, the most notable consequence of this renewed interest is the historical research that is being done outside of the field by people interested in headstones. Many of the comments on these headstone cleaning videos feature amateur researchers finding out everything they can about the subject of that particular cleaning video. Those videos then become not only about cleaning and preservation but also about historical research and memorialization.

This renewed interest does not only exist in the confines of the internet. Cemetery tours are becoming increasingly popular as people are becoming more willing to engage with not only death, but life as well. Cemeteries become not only places that signify the end, but places that also signify the beginning. The beginning of understanding the people and the history of our city no matter how mundane it appears to be. Public historians are also taking advantage of these changing perspectives by opening up ideas surrounding the memorialization of the dead and the built environment. Highlighting the abundance of ways we can continue to honor and remember our loved ones.

Letters from the Board

By Amanda Boyd, Board Member

The Patterson Mill Country Store has been a favored pit stop for decades. With its vast collections of antiques and vintage everything, what began as the Hudson family farm grew into a local retreat and a must-see for any passerby.  The store not only served as a treasure trove of knick-knacks and rare finds, but also held the legacy of its founders, Elise Hudson Booker and John Gates Booker Jr. 

Since 1973, visitors have escaped to the tranquil homestead in West Durham, venturing up the long-winding gravel driveway to explore the Country Store and enjoy the historic Hudson family farm. Built in 1918, the house, designed and constructed by Elise’s Father, Walter Curtis Hudson, began as a two-room design. Walter expanded the structure into the notable one-and-a-half-story craftsman-style house and built the dairy barn, milk house, log cabin, and numerous sheds.

Although farming was in her blood, Elise went on to work as a pharmacist for 40 years after earning her degree from UNC’s School of Pharmacy in 1943. She was inducted into the North Carolina Academy of Pharmacy in 1961 and named Pharmacist of the Year in 1968. Later in life, Elise took an interest in collecting pharmaceutical memorabilia and antiques, her collection earning recognition from the American Institute of the History of Pharmacy in 1980. Over 3,000 of her items have been donated to the pharmacy exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of History. 

While her collections were notable, to say the least, her passion for preservation led her to make a local impact. Elise served as a charter member for Preservation Durham, had a seat on the board of the West Point on the Eno, and was instrumental in preserving her grandfather’s land, Leigh Farms, which now serves as a public park. Her husband, John, was also a history enthusiast, collected tobacco memorabilia, and was a member of Preservation Durham. The Patterson Mill Country Store not only showcased the couple’s vast collectibles but was a standing representation of sustainable management at its finest. The structure had been built from scraps and salvage of other local historical buildings and named for the nearby Patterson Mill, which operated in the late nineteenth century.

After 48 years of service and amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the family made the tough decision to close the business for good. And while Epcon Communities will soon develop the land, Preservation Durham was granted the exclusive opportunity to salvage as much of the physical history as possible. 

“The best we can do is preserve and protect our historic built environment. But when those efforts fail, the next best thing is to salvage the bones of these buildings and repurpose them elsewhere.” Michael Verville, a local preservationist and volunteer with Preservation Durham, was one of many who jumped at the chance to assist in the salvage of the Patterson Mill Country Store. “Durham's rapid development is putting a lot of existing housing at risk of demolition. [One] of the things we can do when a historic structure is set for demolition, assuming we have legal permission to enter the property, is repurposing the materials to help save other buildings that are at risk of demolition and in need of rehabilitation. It’s like an organ donation for old houses.” 

For weeks Preservation Durham’s Executive Director, Dr. Chris Laws, led the charge in recovering critical elements of the Hudson family home, Country Store, and other outdoor structures that could be utilized or resold for purpose. “We salvaged a lot of window sashes, some early ones constructed with pegs that have wavy glass, but also some mid-20th century windows that are in great shape and have never been painted.” Verville goes on to explain, “We also saved some primitive barn doors, a nice six-panel door that may have been constructed in the mid-19th century, a pair of sidelights, bricks, mantels, repurposed slate, hand-hewn floor joists, and some old stock tobacco packaging. We also salvaged some 12-foot cedar posts that will be reused in the replica Occaneechi Village downtown Hillsborough.” 

Preservation Durham thanks and appreciates everyone who assisted with the salvage efforts. The administration hopes to showcase the inventory soon. 

Verville has worked on various other preservation and restoration projects, including repairing outbuildings at a former plantation in Warren County and replacing rotted sills on the Pauli Murray House. He worked under the late Dean Ruedrich in 20017 and 2018, primarily focusing on cemetery restoration. After Ruedrich’s passing in 2019, Verville and his wife, Hilary, established Verville Preservation, continuing the cemetery monument restoration work in Ruedrich’s honor.

By Debra Taylor Gonzalez Garcia, Board Member

Preserving a historic cemetery was never on my bucket list of things to do.  My passion for genealogy led me to Geer Cemetery to research the people buried within it. It would be my way of giving back humanity to those whose life stories and contributions have been forgotten. However, things do not always go according to plan. Fast forward four years and I’m deeply involved in preserving Geer Cemetery and others like it. 

The physical preservation is where I had initially drawn the line not to cross into. I do not like working in overgrown plants, I prefer to look at nature from a distance including insects and other wildlife. I am afraid of snakes, even the thought of them makes me shudder. I wouldn’t know what poison ivy (or any of its cousins) looked like if I was staring at it. You can find me on selected days (during the cold months) pulling English ivy and more. And I spend much more time doing genealogy research and working with others to make Friends of Geer Cemetery a vital organization to preserve Geer Cemetery. 

It all began because I was researching a woman named Millie Markham, who provided an interview for the WPA slave narratives. I knew that her husband founded St. Joseph AME Church in Durham, NC, and was buried in Geer Cemetery, but none of the information published about the cemetery included her. Reviewing her death certificate confirmed that she was buried in Geer Cemetery. I was driven to locate her gravesite and ensure she is publicized as much as her husband, Edian Markham. I felt that her being one of the first-person narratives of previously enslaved people interviewed was important and worth recognizing. She is one of two known people who were interviewed in the Durham area who are confirmed as being buried in Geer Cemetery. 

My focused beginning into Geer Cemetery has now been expanded into full preservation of the physical burial ground and development of life stories. I quickly understood that both sides of the preservation coin are needed. I have also learned that this is social justice work. The cemetery established around 1877 was the African American response to segregationist practices of the community post-emancipation. It was one of several that existed in Durham for the same reason. I think of it as the African American resilience in the face of exclusion from the Durham city cemetery, which led them to create their own public burial spaces as they continued to fight for equal access to the Durham city-supported cemetery. It would take fifty years after the first deed associated with Geer Cemetery before the city established an equal, but separate cemetery for African Americans – Beechwood Cemetery.

It has been an exciting journey to research and learn about Durham’s rich history and the people who created it. Even the lives that were very short tell a story related to Durham. I feel preserving this collective cultural heritage is important, exciting, and rewarding. I have researched not only those in Geer Cemetery, but other cemeteries also. I have found a richness of people who made remarkable achievements in their lifetime and it has become a pull to learn more. I have also continued my research on Millie Markham. Unfortunately, to this day, a marker has not been found for either Millie or her husband. I’ll keep looking!

THIS MONTH IN DURHAM HISTORY!

100 Years Ago, 1923

Durham residents were able to travel to Raleigh with greater ease on the new Durham-Raleigh highway, which connected through Cary. At the time, it was the longest stretch of permanent paved road in the state. Durham mayor J.M. Manning called the project, which had begun before the United States’ entry into World War I, an example of great foresight and patriotism. He added that the “highway construction, [and] the great impetus given the public education with our industrial progress has put North Carolina on the map of the nation. We have, as a state, at last walked from our lethargy, and are in the forefront of all other southern states in material advancement.”

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