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mcc-jrr_int-002
Cemeteries of Redstone Arsenal Report Introduction, page 2
The hardcopy report is an excerpt of the much more massive database compiled relative to the cemeteries on the arsenal property for the Environmental Management Directorate of the U. S. Army Garrison -Redstone, at 4488 Martin Road, Redstone Arsenal, AL 35898 . The Environmental Management Directorate is headed by Mr. Terry W. Hazle, Director. This effort has been undertaken with interfaces to the Natural Resources Division, managed by Mr. Danny Dunn, Division Chief. The activity on the arsenal has been accomplished with guidance and support provided by Ms. Beverly Curry, Staff Archaeologist. Ms. Curry supports the Army offices through a contract with the University of Alabama's Tuscaloosa offices headed by Craig Remington. It was Ms. Curry who first requested, and later facilitated, the support from the undersigned to volunteer for the investigations of the cemeteries on Redstone Arsenal. While the hardcopy report contains a general description of each cemetery that was found and investigated, it often contains only a few of the site or fieldstone and area photos. The report does include photos of all legibly inscribed tombstones that were found. It further includes a synopsis of the lives of the decedents found interred in each cemetery, along with segments of their family history or genealogy from several sources. However, the database that was compiled for the Army offices is much more extensive in most cases, and is resident on multiple CD-ROMs that were provided to the Army for their records or whatever use they may wish at any time. It should be noted that this report focused almost exclusively upon pioneer settlement of the arsenal lands from the earliest (post-Indian era) settlers, generally throughout the 1800s. Some of the data extends into the first two decades of the 1900s, since that was the break in the storage media of the old courthouse books, from 1809 - 1919. The account of the subsequent land ownership and use of arsenal property after 1919 was left in the capable hands of Ms. Curry. It is known that she personally interviewed numerous residents who lived on arsenal property at the time of the formation of the arsenal, along with their descendants, and she has compiled their stories. Her focus was on “living memories” and the public records in the 1900s, so it takes both her report and this report to construct a complete picture of the pre-arsenal land use and ownership. Another appropriate note is that this is an on-going work. Additional information is in many cases already collected, but not yet processed for 2 - (3152)