Located on Avenue D and Friendship Street in Darlington, the Darlington Memorial Cemetery was the first cemetery created for African-Americans in the community. The cemetery began in 1890 as a five-acre cemetery established by Macedonia Baptist Church and African-American citizens in Darlington. In 1946, Bethel A.M.E. Church and St. James Methodist Church established cemeteries across from Macedonia Baptist Church Cemetery. The three cemeteries are collectively known as the Darlington Memorial Cemetery. The cemetery includes graves dating back to the late 19th century and includes graves of many prominent and well-known African-American residents of the town. Notable citizens such as Rev. Isaac P. Brockenton, D.D. (1828-1908), minister and public servant; Lawrence Cain (1871-1944), principle of Mayo Grade School and Mayo High School; Edmund H. Deas (1855-1915), a prominent politician; Lawrence Reese (1864-1915), a merchant and self-taught designer and master craftsman; and Dr. Mable K. Howard (1876-death unknown), an educator.
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Interesting post, Max. I’ve long been fascinated with old cemeteries. The old cemetery in Port St. Joe, FL, tells the story of the terrible yellow fever epidemic in the mid 19th Century. Farther east is the Apalachicola Cemetery with graves dating (I believe) to the mid 18th Century. North of where I grew up in Panama City, FL, is the Econfina river valley. There are numerous small family cemeteries scattered about in that (still) fairly unpopulated area. In some small church cemetery in Cheraw, SC, lies my great (X?) grandfather, Philip Pledger. He served as a captain under Francis Marion (the Swamp Fox) during the American Revolution. I’m hoping to look up his resting place before too long.
One name on the signpost above your article struck me: Lawrence Reese. I believe you did a feature article on him in an earlier post. So fitting that he be remembered this way.
–Mike