Historical society rededicates Bartow County cemetery

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Posted 7:42AM on Monday, August 19, 2002

EUHARLEE, Ga. - A vital part of the past of this tiny, northwest Georgia town was honored Saturday, when the Euharlee Historical Society rededicated the newly cleaned Black Pioneer Cemetery. Residents worked hard for hours clearing and cleaning the once wooded acre between Euharlee's Presbyterian and Baptist churches where about 200 of the towns earliest settlers were buried between about 1830 to 1900. The cemetery's dedication paid homage to the many black settlers who carved out the town's past, said Mary Ellen Taff, president of the Euharlee Historical Society. Time, nature and neglect had taken its toll on the place, nearly obscuring the plot's historic significance. "We knew the cemetery was there, and we thought everybody else did," Taff said. "We were driven to the point that we had to prove it was a cemetery." The cemetery was located between the churches because both black and white families attended church together at that time, Taff said. "People didn't see color as a problem then," Taff said. "We were friends in the first place. Everybody had to help one another to exist." It was only natural to bury deceased blacks between the two churches' white cemeteries where everyone went to church, Taff said. The last person was buried in the plot around 1900, and few people living knew the cemetery existed. Lifelong Euharlee residents like Taff remembered it, though. Taff remembers her family talking about Hett Powell, a woman fondly known as "Aunt Hett," being buried in the cemetery. "My mother would have been 135 this year, and Aunt Hett was an old lady herself," Taff said. "I have my mother's cookbook, and it has a recipe for Aunt Hett's Cake dated in the 1890s."