Download [Page] [Document]
mcc-bc1-207

---

The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 193

---

Jeanette and Elbert ran a store that was a room in their house. They sold candy and soap. I can't remember the house too well. They had two bedrooms. In those days you didn't have a living room. I went to school in a church. It was called Gaines Chapel, there on Burton Road. Shirley Chunn stated that she used to walk from Burton Road to her house. The researcher has concluded that Burton Road went north from what is now Redstone Road, possibly along the property line of the Burton property shown on the Army Real Estate Map as Parcel E-216 at the time of sale in 1941. The Burton/Morton Cemetery is on Parcel E-218 to the south of Joseph Burton's land, on a parcel that belonged to Kirby Cartwright in 1941. This is on the north shoulder of what is now Redstone Road. The cemetery was photographed by J. P. Rankin. Note: Georgia Lacy Lanier said her mother, Lucy Fisher Lacy, was buried in Burton Cemetery in the 1930's. In 1940, the War Department signed a contract with Baltimore architects/engineers Whitman, Requardt & Smith for their services for Huntsville Arsenal, Gulf Chemical Warefare Depot, and Redstone Ordnance Plant. Army files dated 1952 contain information from the Whitman, Requardt and Smith survey of Burton Cemetery. The centered heading on the page is “Report on Graves??"Colored Cemeteries.” The following names are listed: Bernice Copeland, 1941 Bessie Burton, 1927 Geo. Burton Susie A. Burton, 1929 Ella B. Chunn, 1940 Annie Willingham Mary Cuff, 1858-1931 Cement headstone L.V. Tate, 1938 Wm. Barnhard, 1855-1931 Cement headstone Tansy Barnhard, 1939 Twenty-one other graves, unmarked The birth dates on the two cement stones would indicate that Mary Cuff and Wm. Bernard were probably born in slavery. Since no “cement stones” were present for the other names listed, it is probable that their graves were marked by the tin markers that 193 - (4226)    

---