Forgotten in history: Red Bank officials working to learn origin of abandoned cemeteries

RED BANK, Tenn. — Two cemeteries in Red Bank are what city leaders say have been forgotten in history.

One is Red Bank Cemetery. It is hidden behind trees and is in the backyard of some homes.

Red Bank Mayor Hollie Berry says several families who are well-known names in the city's history are buried here. The last burial was in the 90s.

Berry says the city is focused on restoring this cemetery and making it more open to the public.

“It's kind of hidden away as you come in, it seems like you're coming up a private driveway and doesn't really feel like a public space and welcoming," Berry says. “We want to make it clear to people where it is so that they can come visit and appreciate the beauty of the place and the history of the place.”

The second cemetery has a very different history.

It is an old potter's field that city leaders are referring to as "the field" and was abandoned in the early 1900s.

Berry says it was formally abandoned before the prohibition, because there were moonshine stills that the city has records of being set up in the graveyard after its abandonment.

But, Berry says she didn't even know it was on city property until 2020.

She says the city had a historian come out who managed to locate it and use a metal detector to find the borders of the cemetery that were marked by barbed wire.

"He was able to positively ID the site for the first time in, I don't know how long, decades, generations, and it was pretty exciting to have a actual physical location to pinpoint to associate with all those history accounts that we knew of that cemetery that was in the area," Berry says.

Buried here were those who were poor, criminals and also bodies of the unknown.

Donivan Brown, founder of the Ed Johnson Project, says Alfred Blount, the first man lynched from the Walnut Street Bridge, is buried here.

“Given the racial order of this day, many folks buried here, in all likelihood, didn't receive a lot of respect in life, and they were further disrespected in death," Brown says.

It is deep within an area of overgrown vegetation and kudzu at White Oak Park and is barely accessible.

“I've never seen a cemetery like this. There are no indicators of headstones or tombstones, there are some metal markers that are around the property itself," Brown says.

Brown says these bodies were not properly laid to rest and were barely covered or sometimes not buried at all.

“Given its relationship to nature, you'd have wild animals roaming through and consuming body parts. There was also a significant amount of cadaver theft," Brown says.

Brown says many of the bodies buried in the field were African Americans.

Brown and city leaders say the effort here is to give the buried a proper resting place and correct the wrongs made here in history. People were buried here from the late 1800s to early 1900s.

“I hope that the city can do it justice, to bring all those stories to light and give them a place to honor all the memories of the people who had such difficult lives," Berry says.

Berry says Red Bank passed a resolution to form a Cemetery Citizens Advisory Board, which will be 10 people who focus on maintaining these cemeteries.

She says anyone who’s interested can submit an application on the city’s website.

Wednesday evening, the city is hosting a public meeting at White Oak Park to gather ideas about what to do with the connector trail that connects the park to "the field."

It is from 6pm to 8:30pm.