Video: Landlocked Slave Cemetery

A Tuscaloosa County man is battling local government to help people gain access to an historic slave cemetery. The Old Prewitt Slave Cemetery has become landlocked over time, now surrounded by private property and Lake Tuscaloosa.

People with ancestors in the cemetery can't get to the gravesites without going across private property. Even though denying access to a cemetery is illegal, one man who has ancestors in the burial site is having a hard time getting public access.

James "Wood" Wilson says it's his mother's side of the family who's buried in the slave cemetery. "My great-great grandmother and great-great grandfather are buried here."

The Prewitt Plantation Slave Cemetery is in Northport. It sits on a bluff overlooking Lake Tuscaloosa on the grounds of the old Prewitt Plantation once owned by John Welch Prewitt.

According to historians Prewitt was also a slave trader who reportedly owned more than 600 slaves. They say Prewitt gave the two acres of land to his slaves to bury their dead. It's estimated there are hundreds of slaves buried here, many of the markers still stand, some have long since been destroyed while others were never even marked at all.

The Prewitt Cemetery is the largest slave cemetery in the south established in the 1820s about 40 years before the Civil War.

There haven't been any burials there since the 1940s but Wilson and a dedicated group of volunteers maintain the historic grounds. The land all around the cemetery is privately owned.

The cemetery entrance used to be off Old Byler Road, but when Lake Tuscaloosa was formed it swallowed up much of Old Byler and over the years surrounding property owners have taken over the now dead end road.

One homeowner has even put up a gate to his property that blocks the old entrance to the cemetery, essentially landlocking Prewitt Cemetery. Wilson said, "We had a road into it we just want access back into the cemetery."

There are other ways to get to the cemetery, but it involves trespassing on private property which Wilson says no one should have to do.

He's approached the Tuscaloosa County Commission about the issue several times in the past. "The first time I met with them they were agreeable but nothing ever happened," said Wilson.

According to Alabama law, access cannot be denied to cemeteries whether public or private. So Wilson went before the Commission again in February asking the county to establish a designated entrance to the cemetery. Commissioners again said they would take care of it.

County Commissioner Don Wallace said, "You can't close off access to a public cemetery so we'll more than happy to help him get some sort of a deeded or platted right of way the county can maintain."

Jim Adkins is the property owner who put up a gate on his property. He says he's always allowed people to go through his property to get to the cemetery. "We let people go all the time, they come over there and ask us and we say sure they park down there and walk around they sit on our benches and stuff."

But Wilson said the gate is closed and locked more often than not, and if Adkins were to sell his property there's no guarantee the new owner would be so accommodating.

Judge Hardy McCollum is a Tuscaloosa County Commissioner and Probate Judge. He said, "Its just a matter of informing the property owner as to their responsibility or what the rights are of the folks that have access to that cemetery."

That may mean Adkins will have to move his gate. His response to that, "I'd ask them why, we're not blocking anybody from the cemetery."

But Wilson said, "This is something we can just keep letting it go, we gotta get access back to the cemetery."

Adkins says no one has approached him about the issue.

The County Commission meets again Wednesday, February 18th. We'll be there and let you know if the Commission resolves the matter.

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