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Maple Hill Cemetery, Phase 1, page xvi
Samford University discussed the value of cemeteries as one of the more important developments in a community. To paraphrase Dr. Jeane:
"Cemeteries give us information about land valued and held sacred by early town founders, the funerary art, family and cultural burial traditions, available materials, craftsmanship, ornamental plantings, birth and death records, and much more.
Unlike historic buildings that generally undergo alterations over the years, cemeteries are the most unchanged physical landscapes from our past."28
Much of the history of Huntsville is found at Maple Hill Cemetery. It is one of the most valuable record of this city and its development.
ENDNOTES
1 For general histories of Huntsville and Madison County, the reader is referred to the Bibliography. The Huntsville Historical Review, Summer-Fall 1993, Volume 20 #2 contains two articles of importance: "How Huntsville Grew: Boundary and Annexation Survey, 1810-1993" by Linda Bayer Allen and Juergen Paetz, staff members, Huntsville City Planning Commission; and "The Public Square in Madison County" by Dr. Frances C. Roberts, Professor Emerita, University of Alabama in Huntsville.
^Frances C. Roberts, "Thomas Freeman--Surveyor of the Old Southwest," The Alabama Review. A Quarterly Journal of Alabama History, Volume XI, #3, July, 1987, pp. 216-230.
3William H. Brantley Jr, Three Capitals. A Book about the First Three Capitals of Alabama: St. Stephens, Huntsville and Cahawba 1818-1826, University of Alabama Press, 1947 The 1809 census of Heads of Families by name is found on pages 216-223.
4 Ellis Merton Coulter, Old Petersburg and the Broad River Valley of Georgia: Their Rise and Decline, University of Georgia Press, 1965.
5 Judge Thomas Jones Taylor, 'The History of Madison County, Alabama" is an unpublished manuscript written between 1880 and 1886 by Judge Taylor for a series of newspaper articles he later published. A different version of the history was published as A History of Madison County and Incidentally of North Alabama 1732-1840. Edited with an introduction by S. Stanley Hoole and Addie S. Hoole. Confederate Publishing Company, University of Alabama, 1976.
6Madison County Public Records, Office of the Probate Judge. Deed Books, Tract Books, Plats, Orphan's Court Minutes and Chancery Records Hereinafter be cited by appropriate reference, i.e. Deed Book, Plat Book. etc. The Braham and Pope purchases are found in Tract Book, p. 36..
7 Deed Book I-J, pp. 289-290.
^Dorothy Scott Johnson, Madison County Alabama Deed Books A, B, C, D, E 1810-1819 (Territorial), Johnson Historical Publications, 1976.
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