On March 12 and 13, 2024, Legacy Cultural Resources, Inc. invited ground penetrating radar specialists Dr. Chet Walker and Aundrea Thompson to visit the campus of Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU) and conduct several geophysical examinations of the historic burial ground of Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery.
This project is funded through the Summerlee Foundation.
Aundrea Thompson, Dr. Chet Walker, and Dr. DeWayne Moore
Aundrea Thompson & Dr. Chet Walker met with project director and PVAMU Assistant Professor of History DeWayne Moore to learn more about the grant from the Summerlee Foundation.
Dr. Moore’s son, Noah, surveys the cemetery with students workers on the Digital PV Panther Project–Noah Jackson, Zynitra Durham, and Jaylynn Brantley
The archaeologists
In the spring of 2006, Dr. Walker founded Archaeo-Geophysical Associates, LLC, an archaeological consulting firm specializing in geophysical prospection. Since that time, he has collected geophysical data on over 150 archaeological sites, now totaling much more than 1,539 Acres of Gradiometer, 115 Acres of Ground-Penetrating Radar, and 484 Acres of Electromagnetic Induction Meter.
Aundrea Thompson studied at the University of Wyoming, and she has worked as a forensic archaeologist on numerous projects in the past ten years. For more on one project, in which she located the remains of a World War II soldier and brought his remains back to the US for burial, please click HERE
Hauling their geophysical prospection equipment in a large pick-up truck from Palestine, Texas, where they had been working at another archaeological site, Aundrea and Chet planned to spend two days on campus before driving to Magnolia, Texas to collaborate with the Houston Archaeological Society on a dig site.
At PVAMU, Chet and Aundrea planned to run the ground-penetrating radar over the entire five acre field to determine the size of the burial ground. In addition, they intended to scan the field with an electromagnetic induction meter as well as LIDAR [or Light Detection and Ranging], which is attached to a large drone and scans an estimated 120 acre area.
In this image, you can see how running the GPR looks on the grass. Making an imprint similar to that of a lawn mower, Chet and Aundrea covered the entire field, hoping to determine the size of the burial ground.
By scanning the entire field, the teams intends to use the data from GPR to corroborate data obtained during the pedestrian survey in October 2023. We hope to determine the locations of graves and the size of the burial ground.
The cemetery
The burial ground is associated with and named after an African American church founded in the 1890s by Reverend George W. Wyatt, a one-time school teacher and politician who represented Waller and Fort Bend Counties in the state legislature in the 1880s. Based on slave schedules, Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery might contain hundreds of graves of enslaved people, formerly enslaved people, and their descendants. It sits on the former slave labor plantation of Jared E. Kirby, who, in 1860, owned more enslaved people (159) than any other planter in Austin County. No one made a formal record of these burials, however, and the historic burial ground, which is located behind University Village Phase III, was over time abandoned, especially after 1961, with the establishment of nearby Prairie View Memorial Gardens. Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery contains only a handful of marked graves, but it holds forever close the remains of three United States military veterans.
LIDAR, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging, is a remote sensing method that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure ranges (variable distances) to the Earth.
Drone with LIDAR
Chet and Aundrea have several drones that can carry up to 22 pounds of equipment.
Pre-Set Navigation
With pre-set navigational controls, the drone flies back and forth in straight lines, capturing data about the contours of the earth over a 120 square mile area.
Chet and Aundrea completed the data collection using ground penetrating radar for the entire five acre field, and they obtained LIDAR data using the drone, but they plan to return later in March 2024 to complete data collection with the magnetometer. Once all the data is collected, they will analyze their findings independently and objectively, and they will submit their findings to Dr. Nesta Anderson, of Legacy Cultural Resources, Inc., who will meet with Dr. Moore and Pamela Morgan, of the Wyatt Chapel Descendants Committee, to compare the results to the findings from the pedestrian survey.
Digital PV Panther Project John B. Coleman Library Room 111 Prairie View, Texas 77446
In 2020, PVAMU President Ruth Simmons and Simmons Center for Race & Justice Director Melanye Price asked PVAMU History Professor Dr. Marco Robinson to begin conducting research into the early history of Prairie View A&M University. He asked a group of scholars in the Division of Social Sciences to conduct their own personal investigations and incorporate research projects into their American History survey courses. With no funding at his disposal, Dr. Robinson also worked with a newly-hired public historian, Dr. T. DeWayne Moore, and the PVAMU archivists–Phyllis Earles and Lisa Stafford–to write a series of grant proposals.
One of the most startling discoveries in the initial months was the fact that we did not know the name of a single person who had been enslaved on the plantation that later became PVAMU. Thus, we had no way to track down the descendants of the formerly enslaved people who lived at Alta Vista.
This blog post reveals the first name we discovered in 2021.
What’s in a Name?
For African Americans, the genealogical research process is painful. It reflects the blunt historical truth about hereditary chattel slavery. Historical researchers do not look for evidence about the existence of people. Instead, we need to trace the way property changed hands. Consider the documents associated with buying a house or vehicle in 2023. Slaves were considered property in the nineteenth century, and we can find records associated with slaves. But those records are in the owner’s name.
The 1850 and 1860 censuses included “slave schedules,” and the census enumerators asked slaveowners to list the ages and genders of the enslaved people they held in bondage. The slave schedules, however, do not include their names. This fact has made it difficult to track down the descendants of the people enslaved at Alta Vista.
Jared Ellison Kirby
Slaveowner, Planter, and Confederate Soldier
One of the first steps in the research process was examining the life of Jared Ellison Kirby, the slaveowner and planter who owned the land on which the university sits before the Civil War. An excellent place to learn more about the lives of Americans in the nineteenth century is Ancestry.com, the world’s largest collection of online family history records and government documents.
The slave schedules in the 1860 United States Census reveal that J. E. Kirby owned 159 slaves–more than any other slave owner in Austin County at that time.
Besides census records and slave schedules, we located the manifest of the ship named Galveston, which transported slaves from New Orleans, Louisiana to Galveston, Texas in May 1858 for a domestic slave trading company, Fellows & Co.
Though an 1807 law banned the trans-Atlantic slave trade to the United States as of 1 January 1808, slaves could still be bought and sold (and transported) within the country. The same law that banned the foreign slave trade also regulated the internal transportation of slaves, requiring masters of vessels carrying slaves in coastal waters to provide a manifest detailing their slave cargo when leaving (“outward”) or entering (“inward”) a port.
The ship manifest contains the name of one person who likely lived at Kirby’s enslaved labor plantation, Alta Vista, in then-Austin County, Texas.
Source: The National Archives in Washington, DC; Washington, DC; Slave Manifests of Coastwise Vessels Filed at New Orleans, Louisiana, 1807-1860; Microfilm Serial: M1895; Microfilm Roll: 30.
Slave Ship Galveston
In May 1858, Captain Rathburn transported a fifteen year-old woman, who was five feet, one inch tall, on the Galveston.
Her name was Lucinda.
No consolidated database of slave ship manifests exists, but Ancestry.com is an important online resource that brings some of these records together in searchable database. Other primary sources–such as wills, estate inventories, deeds, and probates–can also reveal how human property changed hands in the antebellum period, but these records are often difficult to read, and most of them are not digitized or indexed for easy searching. Yet, a couple of genealogists who work with the Waller County Historical Commission have been working hard to digitize the records in the basement of the Waller County courthouse in Hempstead. Since Waller County did not exist until 1873, however, this effort will not provide much insight into antebellum slavery.
Indeed, it will be very difficult to track down the descendants of people enslaved at Alta Vista, but the increased interest in university history and digital preservation has positively changed the prospects for institutional historians at PVAMU. If we try harder to make the archival collections at PVAMU available—and visible and searchable—online, and if white researchers who find evidence of slaveholding in their families will make family documents public, for Black researchers to access and use, we can discover the names of more enslaved people in Waller County.
Our mission at the Digital PV Panther Project is to eliminate historical silences through digital storytelling and prevent the erasure of African American history through historic preservation at PVAMU.
“Silence is a very good weapon of the administration,” argued Lorenzo Williams, one of the students who met with PVAMU President A.I. Thomas in late February 1971, “and so the people (meaning the students) turned to violence as a means of being heard by the administration.” The meeting took place on Friday, February 26, two days after an estimated 1,000 PVAMU students marched to his home and presented him with a list of 19 demands, including his resignation. President Thomas refused to bow immediately to the demands, however, arguing that he did not feel that he should reply to any “demands under threat, coercion, intimidation or disruption,” and the students proceeded to destroy over $200,000 of property on campus. After leaving his home on Wednesday evening, the students burned down the campus security building, the Dean of Men’s offices, and the Office of Freshman Studies. They overturned a security patrol car and set it on fire, and they broke into and looted the College Exchange Store. On Thursday morning, the students set fire to the Army ROTC building and smashed windows in several dormitories.
In a subsequent issue of the newsletter for parents of students, The Guardian, he agreed to “discuss any issues of concern to our students provided they are presented in an orderly manner by appropriate student representatives,” and the March 1971 issue of the Prairie View Panther contained a list of demands and replies by the administration (Click HERE for the primary source). It also contained an article titled, “Academic Life Back to Normal Again,” which diminished the problems that gave rise to the protest and highlighted the administration’s decision to deny 127 students readmission for their participation in the protest.
One of the students denied readmission was Lawrence Tureaud (aka Mr. T), who served as the Vice President of the Freshman Class.
Freshman Class Officers in the 1971 Yearbook – Standing on the far right is Lawrence Tureaud (aka Mr. T)
Lawrence Tureaud (aka Mr. T) in the 1971 Panther Yearbook
The student uprising in February 1971 stemmed from a host of problems on campus, and the students later submitted a list of 19 demands to President Thomas. (Click HERE to read a list of all 19 demands and replies by the administration). Yet, a few specific developments in mid-February sparked the outbreak of violence. PVAMU tightened its shoplifting policies at the Campus Exchange Store, a policy which led to more serious punishments for anyone caught stealing, and the university also expelled an estimated 200 students for failing to maintain a good grade point average. Several of the students were members of a group called People for Afro-American Life, an organization that published an underground newspaper and had previously been banned on campus (See the (Tyler, TX) Morning Telegraph, February 26, 1971).
Dean of Men’s Building in Ruins
Geneva Chapman, editor of the student newspaper, The Prairie View Panther, from 1968 – 1971
Moreover, and perhaps most importantly, the university decided to expel Geneva Chapman, the outspoken editor of the student newspaper, The Prairie View Panther, who had defied the gendered dorm policies, which prevented female students from leaving campus on the weekends. On the weekend of February 20-21, she travelled to New Orleans to celebrate Mardi Gras, and the university’s decision to expel her the following week gave rise to the student protests.
Several of the demands, such as the resignation of President Thomas, an extension of women’s curfew, better food on campus, and the return of all expelled students, pertained to longstanding problems on PVAMU campus, but others–such as calling for an end to the ROTC training program on campus–reflected the Anti-Vietnam War protests that had erupted on college campuses across the country.
Out of over one thousand protesters, the police arrested only two students involved in the uprising–20 year-old junior Leonard Baker and 28 year-old Air Force veteran Quincy Brooks were charged with acting to promote damage to school property. The judge set the two men’s bond at $100,000 each–an extremely large amount of money in 1971 that might be over a million dollars today. Waller County Sheriff Jimmy Whitworth told one Houston Chronicle reporter that he could not recall another misdemeanor charge with so high a bond. The attorney defending the two students claimed that the arrests were “based on that old logic of 20 years ago – you get the leaders and kill the protest.”
PVAMU President A.I. Thomas later blamed the protests on a couple of “real professional agitators.”
President Thomas declared that “real professional agitators” came from elsewhere to Prairie View with the intention to stir up trouble on an otherwise harmonious, peaceful institution of higher learning.
“troublemakers”
PVAMU President A.I. Thomas’s claims not only invoked the charges of white supremacists who sought to delegitimize the protests of African Americans during the Civil Rights Movement, but they also reflect the contemporary political tactics of conservatives since the murder of George Floyd, who sought to delegitimize the marches, protests, and other acts of civil disobedience that erupted in Minneapolis, Minnesota and Portland, Oregon–among many other cities across the country. Conservative political pundits refused to admit that police brutality and other problems with the criminal justice system developed directly out of racial inequality in America. Instead, they blamed paid professional agitators, specifically members of a mysterious group called ANTIFA, for creating civil unrest across the country.
President A.I. Thomas in the 1970s
President Thomas shut down the momentum of a potentially powerful movement by adopting the same tactics used by administrators at Tuskegee University in 1968. He closed PVAMU campus indefinitely in March and dismissed the entire student body. Despite his claims that “real professional agitators” were responsible for the student uprising, he attempted to weed out the student organizers by forcing every single student to re-apply for admission. The students, however, did not have to re-register for classes. They simply picked up cards that allowed them to come back onto campus and classes resumed where they had left off when the school was closed.
PVAMU was established on top of a former slave labor plantation known as Rock Island place, or Alta Vista. In 1876, the state bought it and turned into a land grant school for African Americans. The plantation may have been transformed into a college campus, but students and faculty told one reporter in the early 1970s that “a plantation mentality” lingered on at PVAMU–“complete with the endemic suspicion, fear and intrigue that once existed between” house servants and field workers.
Unlike in 1968 at Tuskegee, where a court injunction reinstated expelled student activists, the 127 students denied re-admission to PVAMU–as well as the estimated 200 students expelled in early February–never got the chance to finish their degrees on “The Hill.” Despite serving as the editor of the student newspaper for more than two years, Geneva Chapman never again roamed “The Hill” where she had so passionately and fearlessly editorialized about her experiences as a Black woman during the tumultuous late 1960s. Unfortunately she passed away recently, and we never got the chance to make a case to have her re-instated. To read more about the work of Geneva Chapman for the Prairie View Panther, please click HERE to search the digitally archived student newspapers in the John B. Coleman Library.
This blog post is dedicated to Geneva Chapman, Lawrence Tureaud (Mr. T), and all the other students who participated in the student uprising. It’s dedicated to all the students who felt silenced by the administration and took action to make their voices heard in 1971.
Our mission at the Digital PV Panther Project is to eliminate historical silences through digital storytelling and prevent the erasure of African American history through historic preservation at PVAMU.
the students had no control over the student newspaper, and subsequent issues of the publication contained no news about the aftermath of the protest. The “troublemakers” had been expelled, and the administration had sent a clear message to any other students who might have a problem with the order of things and bring adverse publicity to PVAMU. Due to the politics of respectability, which African American communities developed to push back against the racial stereotypes that abounded during Jim Crow, a conservative culture of silence exists on the campus of HBCUs. In 1971, higher administration at PVAMU depended on this culture of silence to allow them to project an image of respectability to the outside world, and the students found a way to voice their complaints. In 2022, the student newspaper no longer exists, and higher administration once again depends on this conservative culture of silence to project a positive image to the outside world. Yet, things are not what they seem to be at PVAMU. If the university is not careful, the development of a higher consciousness might once again give rise to civil disobedience.
A culture of silence prevailed at PVAMU in 1971,
We want the immediate reinstatement of students expelled from school for voicing their opinions. Such as: Curtis Faulkner, Larry James Mass, Darron Hudson, and Geneva Chapman along with the other students who have been railroaded out of this mock institution, and are now declared by these organizations (S. D. I. A., S. P. A. D. E. as political administrative prisoners
Throughout my week I had the opportunity to go through different pictures taken at sporting events held here in Prairie View in the 1960’s. These photos were kept in great condition so I made sure to have on gloves when I went through them. At the events you can see that the teams are in unison and winning trophies in various sports, tennis, track and field, basketball. The Panthers were winners and nothing less. I made a collage video of the photos taken to highlight how the students were able to come together for a shared cause and use teamwork to be successful. When students are able to put their minds together and create a solution for a specific task it is possible for great things to be accomplished. Though student involvement on campus is encouraged, it can also bring fear to those who view it as a threat to authority.
As I continued my research for the week I came across an Article from the Houston Chronicle. The article detailed events that took place on campus in the early 1970s. In February 1971, PVAMU was hit by surprise when about half of the students launched a protest that would create quite a tense climate here on campus. Labeled as rioters, students took matters into their own hands when they began to set fire to several buildings including the Campus Police Department building and faculty vehicles. An estimated total of 50,000 dollars in damage was done amidst the “riot.”
Academic Life Back to Normal Again
Although many evidences of the recent campus upheaval are lingering on, campus life in general is rapidly returning to normal conditions, particularly in academic affairs. Classes began as the College re-opened its doors on March 8 and day-to-day activities are completely back on schedule. Seemingly, a large percentage of the total number of students who were denied readmission has returned for hearings before a faculty-student court. Facts regarding the hearings on campus were not available to the Panther at press time. According to unofficial sources the total number of students denied re-admission was approximately 129 instead of the 62 figure which received widespread publicity. Dialogue between faculty members and students is being promoted through residence halls visitation. Committees of faculty members are visiting residence halls to talk with students on any possible subjects on which students may desire information: These dormitory sessions are scheduled at 10:30 p.m., Dr. Ivory Nelson, assistant to the Dean of College, announced. At least three or four “fact sheets”, assumingly published underground by students, have been distributed on campus since classes resumed. All have indicated concern about “campus hearings” for suspended students and other matters related to recent incidents on campus. There is an uneasy peace existing on campus. The actions of the American Civil Liberties Union, local campus actions, and the impending “investigation” by a member state senate committee have all members of the official PV family somewhat ill at ease. The disruptions which started on February 24-26 left three students jailed, two faculty members and an undetermined number of students suspended. The trouble started when, an estimated 1,000 students marched on the home of President A. I. Thomas and gave him a list of demands. The frame building which housed the campus security and Dean of Men’s offices was completely destroyed by fire. A security patrol car was overturned and set a fire, the office of Freshman Studies burned, The College Exchange Store broken into and looted and other less serious damages on campus. A list of the damages and a list of the student demands as answered by the president of the College are presented on page 4 of this issue.
The day would come when Mrs. Kirby would refer to the years of trouble after the war as a “Monument of Sorrow”…Then came the storms of murder and death; and more insidious, but no less voracious, the debt that systematically ate up the plantations and farms. Freedom was to take away the capital labor of slaves….
The Historical Marker for Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery (Photo: Lindsay Boknight, 2022)
Within my first week as an archival assistant working on the Digital PV Panther Project, I learned a great deal about the rich history of Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU). My first task was to sort out tape recordings from different events that took place on and around campus. Many of the events took place around the early 1960s to the late 1980s. Events included, summer and spring convocations, dance recitals, ministry conventions, homecoming parades, sports banquets, and athletic games just to name a few. Each tape recording contained the speeches of Former PVAMU President Dr. A.I. Thomas, PVAMU professors, and special guests and speakers, such as Jesse Jackson and Rosa Parks. If you’re wondering, yes the tapes are still in good condition and are playable.
My journey into the archival collections at PVAMU continued at Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery on the back side of campus. For those who may not know, PVAMU was built on top of Jared Ellison Kirby’s former enslaved labor camp, Alta Vista, and he set aside a small plot of land for a burial site for the enslaved. The cemetery behind dormitories “Phase 3 & 6.” The burial ground contains six headstones of the deceased, while the rest of the cemetery holds the unmarked graves of our ancestors. In the upcoming fall 2022 semester, PVAMU Assistant Professor of History Dr. DeWayne Moore and Special Collections Librarian Lisa Stafford will hire an archaeological firm to conduct a ground penetrating radar study of the cemetery. You can read more about the study HERE. The ground penetrating radar will scan the burial ground to determine the location of grave shafts. Using this technology, we will finally be able to determine the burial locations of our ancestors and other internments in the cemetery.
Family portraits and chair of Wilhelmina R. Delco (Photo: Lindsay Boknight, 2022)
After exploring Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery, I visited the fourth floor of the library and learned more about the history of Wilhelmina R. Delco. Born in Chicago, Illinois on July 1, 1929, Ms. Delco was an active student. She served as student body president and member of the National Honor Society. She obtained her Bachelors of Art degree from Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee. She majored in Sociology and minored in Economics and Business Administration. Moreover, Ms. Delco served in the Texas House of Representatives. She began her career in 1974, when she was elected the first black, female, African American official from Travis County. She was sworn into office January 1975 and she began serving her very first term during the 64th legislative session.
Painting of Wilhelmina R. Delco, located 4th floor John B. Coleman Library (Photo: Lindsay Boknight, 2022)
She worked with the community and state on numerous social, educational, and political issues. Her most notable work was done in the area of Education. In 1979, Ms. Delco was appointed Chair of the House Higher Education Committee, on which she served until her next appointment as Speaker Pro Tempore in 1991. In January 1995, she retired from her tenth term and twentieth year in the Texas House of Representatives.
Ms. Delco received many awards, honors, and recognitions throughout her career–two of them being here at PVAMU. The Wilhelmina R. Delco building is home to the Whitlowe R. Green College of Education. Along with an unprocessed manuscript collection of papers, which sits in the PVAMU Archives, the John B. Coleman Library curated an exhibit about her life and career on the 4th floor. It contains an enclosed display of personal pictures, letters, documents, and other media that Ms. Delco used during her time as a representative. These items are up for display, open to staff, students, and the public.
Desk and gavel of Wilhelmina Delco (Photo: Lindsay Boknight, 2022)
Between the work of Wilhelmina Delco and the acknowledgment of the Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery, I have became deeply involved in historic preservation at my HBCU. There is a lot of history that has yet to be uncovered. I cannot wait to see what the rest of the year has in store for the Digital PV Panther Project. And remember, PVAMU is the place to be!
My experience working on the Digital PV Panther Project started off on a high note. In my first week, I uncovered some long-lost elements of university history that stretch back almost two centuries on a field trip to the Austin County Courthouse archives in the town of Bellville, TX. I also tried the chicken tenders at Dairy Queen for the first time! Most importantly, however, I sparked an intense curiosity within myself about the rich history and campus geography at Prairie View A&M University (PVAMU).1
The Austin County Courthouse in Bellville, Texas (Photo: Kalayah Jammer, 2022)
I started the week conducting research on several professors who made marvelous strides in building the prestige of our university. I searched the Digital Commons using bepress, our digital content management system, for past issues of the student newspaper, The Prairie View Panther, and I compiled scores of article excerpts into a single document to help prepare biographies for the new finding aids being created with funding from the Texas State Library & Archives Commission.
One of the professors I researched was Raymond Carreathers, who served as a guidance counselor in the College of Arts and Sciences. In the 1970s, he also served as head of resident and student life in Alexander Hall, a male freshman dorm. He was also a member of the ETA GAMMA chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, Inc. Moreover, he served as an advising officer to the Pan-Hellenic Council as well as the Vice-President of the Southwest Region of Alpha chapters.
The Old Jail Museum off the courthouse square in Bellville, Texas (Photo: Kalayah Jammer, 2022)
The second professor on my list was Carrie B. Coss, a professor of education who joined the faculty in 1946. Formerly at Langston University, she earned bachelor’s degrees from Howard University and Cincinnati University, and she received her master’s degree from Columbia University in New York. Coss also served as a committee chairperson for the Alpha Mu Gamma Honors Society. Not only was she a professor of education at PVAMU, but she was also local historian who uncovered hidden histories on campus. In 1989, Coss worked with the Waller County Historical Society to document African American cemeteries, and she also served on the historical marker committee for Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery, which sits RIGHT BEHIND campus, about a 3-minute walk from Phases 3 & 6. For more information on this committee, please see a previous blog post (Click HERE)
I also compiled lists of articles about Colquitt Dubois Yancy, Florida Yeldell, and Mrs. John C. Winfree–just to name a few, but you will have to wait until a later post or for us to finish the new finding aids in August 2022.
This cornerstone, bronze bell, and brick base are all that remain of the old Austin County Courthouse, which was built around 1886 and destroyed by fire in 1960. (Photo: Kalayah Jammer, 2022)
I also learned a great deal of new information about the history of PVAMU. Not only was the information new to me, but some of it is also a completely new discovery for everyone. The original name of the enslaved labor camp on which PVAMU now sits was called Alta Vista, and it was once owned by Colonel Jared Ellison Kirby. Born in Georgia in 1809, he moved to Texas and amassed a large estate, which he sought to protect through service to the Confederacy. He was shot and killed in October 1865 by a Union supporter in Galveston, Texas. His wife, Helen, acquired Alta Vista upon his death, and she sold it to the State of Texas in the mid-1870s to establish the Alta Vista Agricultural & Mechanical College for Colored Youths, which later became what we know today as PVAMU.
Everyone reading this blog post most likely knows that the state legislature decided to establish PVAMU in Waller county in 1876. You probably did not know, however, that the state legislature passed the act that established Waller County in 1873. Kirby’s enslaved labor camp at Alta Vista, therefore, was located in another county prior to 1873. If I wanted to know anything about Alta Vista prior to the Civil War, I had to visit the county seat of Austin County and find documents related to Kirby and his kin. I wanted to find out what happened on our campus before it was “our” campus. So my boss, Dr. DeWayne Moore, took me to the Bellville Texas Justice Center, which had records about Kirby and many other families.
I had never been to Bellville, but it was a very interesting little town, and I posted some pictures from our visit to the city.
A map from the probate record of Jared Ellison Kirby that shows Pond Creek (Photo: Kalayah Jammer, 2022)
Once we got to the justice center on North Chesley Street, we found our way to the records room–a massive archive full of deed, marriage, and probate records in heavy, leather-bound books that recorded the history of Austin County all the way back to the time of the Texas Revolution. In one of those books, we located the probate record of Jared Ellison Kirby, the planter who owned the enslaved labor camp, Alta Vista, at the time of the Civil War. As I mentioned earlier, Kirby died only a few months after emancipation in October 1865, and his probate contains information about all the property he owned at the time of his death. We hope his probate will contain information about his involvement in slavery, but it will take more time to transcribe its almost 200 pages.
Please do not step on the grass!
The central purpose of our trip to Bellville was to discover our lineage. What existed on campus before it was PVAMU? Who lived on this ground before students? And what is the story of our campus before it was sold to the state to become a university? One tradition at PVAMU, which many students know before they ever set foot on campus, is never stepping on the grass. To pay respects to our enslaved ancestors who lie buried in unmarked graves, we do not step on the grass. We keep off the grass to honor our ancestors who might be buried in any plot of this hallowed ground.
We do not know the exact location of their graves, and we do not know the names of our ancestors, because slave owners did not bother to record the names of the enslaved in the US Census–only their age and gender.
In Bellville, we made one of the most significant historical discoveries in the history of PVAMU. We discovered the names of 58 individuals who once were enslaved at Alta Visa.
The probate record of Indiana Kirby, the first wife of Jared Ellison Kirby (Photo: Kalayah Jammer, 2022)
Due to the fact that the probate is written in old 1800s English cursive handwriting, you may not be able to read this, but I can list a few names for you.
“Willis 17 years old worth 1000 dollars, Levi 15 years old worth 1000 dollars, Sarah 35 years old 800 dollars and Almedia 12 years old 600 dollars.”
While not in this picture, the youngest enslaved person that I’ve seen was a 2-year-old girl named Ellen, who was “worth” 300 dollars. This sight, honestly, was very surreal.
It is one thing to watch Hollywood movies about the Civil War, and it is one thing to learn about slavery in college history courses, but it is quite another to see the names of human property written down in a way that you would write a receipt or account balance sheet. It’s quite surreal to see the listed names of Black people–BLACK CHILDREN–and how old they were and their monetary value, like a material item, we might buy or sell today.
In 1860, 40-year old Jared Ellison Kirby owned 285,000 in real estate and $175,000 in his personal estate, and he lived at Alta Vista with his 23-year old wife, Helen, his two children, 12 year old Lucy and 7 year old Jared Jr. The 73-year-old mother of Jared Kirby was named Sarah, and she owned $32,000 in real estate and $32,000 in personal property. She also lived at Alta Vista.1
The 1860 Slaves Schedules reveal that Jared Kirby owned 30 slave cabins on his property. According to an article in the Prairie View Panther, the slave cabins at Alta Vista were located where the Hobart Taylor building now sits.2 His mother owned 10 slave cabins, in which lived the 19 slaves she owned in 1860.
Jared owned 5 forty-two year old male slaves, 30 thirty-year old male slaves, 21 fifteen year old male slaves, and 15 five year old male slaves. He also owned 4 forty two year old female slaves, 17 twenty five year old female slaves, 22 fifteen year old female slaves, and 25 six year old female slaves.3
71 men, and 68 women. Total of 139 listed under Jared’s name. If you add the 19 people listed under Sarah’s name, that means 158 enslaved men and women lived at Alta Vista in 1860.
In total, we managed to find almost 60 names of our enslaved ancestors in the probates of Jared Kirby’s family members. We were also able to find a map of the enslaved labor camp, Alta Vista, (see above image) which is only part of the campus we know today. We look forward to revealing more information from the probate records in future posts for the Digital PV Panther Project.’
Sincerely,
Kalayah Jammer
END NOTES
1860 USCensus, Hempstead, Austin, Texas; Roll: M653_1287; Page: 175; Family History Library Film: 805287
Gregory Bevels, “Gone but not Forgotten ~ Reflections on Wyatt Chapel Cemetery,” Prairie View (TX) Panther, October 21, 1994.
The National Archives in Washington DC; Washington DC, USA; Eighth Census of the United States 1860; Series Number: M653; Record Group: Records of the Bureau of the Census; Record Group Number: 29
“It is feasible to believe that what is now known as Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery was in the beginning simply the burial place for the Kirby slaves and other black people of the community.”
Interview with George Ruble Woolfolk, 1989.
In the summer of 1989, Dr. Mildred W. Abshier and a research team consisting of Bessie Thomas, Frank Jackson, and Carrie B. Coss visited the cemetery with 82 year-old descendant Ida Lou Wells Owens Pierce, a longtime resident of the Wyatt Chapel community. Using the field research, local scholarship, and the information gleaned from several interviews, Dr. Abshier prepared the following report to accompany the historical marker application submitted to the Texas Historical Commission. Their efforts resulted in the dedication of a historical marker near the cemetery behind Prairie View A&M University in 1992. We located this report while preparing the grant proposal to the Summerlee Foundation in 2021, and we decided to publish it below in advance of the ground penetrating radar survey in September 2022.
Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery, an abandoned all-black burial ground, is located on the north side of Prairie View A & M University campus, the Jesse Clary Survey, Abstract 111, Waller County Texas.1 Exact location of the cemetery with reference to the enclosed map and the Prairie View A & M Campus was attested by tax office personnel of Waller Independent School District, Waller, Texas, in which district the cemetery and the university are located.2
The burial site is a portion of the Jared E. Kirby plantation which the state of Texas purchased in 1876 from Mrs. Helen Marr Swearingen Kirby, widow of Jared E. Kirby, for the purpose of establishing the “Agricultural and Mechanical College for Colored Youth.”3 Size of the burial place is not definitely known, but is believed by various residents of the Prairie View area to consist of about five acres, more or less.4
The burial place is bounded on the west by old Farm Road 1098 by which a north entry is made to the campus, on the south by Flukinger Road, and on the northeast by Pond Creek, with Farm Road 1488 paralleling the creek, in general at a distance of some one-eighth mile.
Just when the cemetery began to be used is not known. However, the Kirby mansion at Alta Vista is believed to have been built at some time between 1858 and 1861, and Kirby is reported to have owned some four hundred slaves.5 Since the beginning date of the cemetery is lost in the haze of time and the lack of records, Dr. George Woolfolk, Chairman of the History Department at Prairie View A&M University, Emeritus, said, “It is feasible to believe that what is now known as Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery was in the beginning simply the burial place for the Kirby slaves and other black people of the community.”6
Worthy of noting is the fact that when Waller County Historical Commission surveyed the County to obtain information for publishing a county cemetery directory (Published in 1977), Mrs. Carrie B. Coss, of Prairie View, gathered the needed information for black cemeteries.7 She was advised by several elderly persons of the Prairie View area that slaves from nearby Liendo plantation were buried in the cemetery in question. Interestingly, Jared E. Kirby, owner of [enslaved labor camp] Alta Vista, which was to become Prairie View A&M University campus, and Leonard Waller Groce, owner of Liendo plantation, were cousins and their plantations were in close proximity. The present owner of Liendo has indicated that he did not know where the Liendo slaves were buried.8 No one, other than those whom Mrs. Coss interviewed (Coss note), was able to point to a spot where the Liendo slaves were interred.
On June 22, 1989 researchers (Mrs. Bessie Thomas, Mr. Frank Jackson, Mrs. Carrie Coss, and Dr. Mildred W. Abshier) visited the abandoned burial site. Mrs. Ida Lou Wells Owens Pierce, age eighty-two, a Wyatt descendant and long time resident of the Wyatt Chapel/Prairie View area, accompanied the researchers.
Abandoned since the early 1950s (The latest death date available from head stones was 1953.),the cemetery was quite overgrown, covered with dense growth of underbrush and shrubs. A few large trees stood among the under growth and this would seem to indicate that once the place had been kept cleared of all but a few trees. Professor Howard Jones, History Department of Prairie View A&M University, with students from the University, had cut a pathway through the underbrush to a portion of the burial ground where markers – generally slab-type head-stones, some of which were broken and/or overgrown with lichens – were yet standing, however some were broken and lying on the ground. Researchers were able to record names and dates on those visible markers (See list below). On every side there were numerous depressions in the soil which indicated the presence of unmarked graves. Of these, Mrs. Pierce said that they were indeed old grave sites. She further said that Caroline (See list) was her grandmother and that she had been a slave. She believed that many slaves, or those formerly held in slavery, were buried at the site. She pointed to a grave within a wire enclosure and noted that was the grave of her mother, Mrs. Mattie Wyatt Wells. Although not attested by markers, Mrs. Pierce indicated that numerous members of the Wyatt and Owens families, as well as other black persons, were buried at the site. She also said that an uncle of hers who was a minister had established the Wyatt Chapel Church which is a mile, or more, from the cemetery.
The consensus of opinion of the elderly ones who live in the area is that the Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery was abandoned when a more easily accessible burial place became available in the nearby Hempstead area. From dates on stones observed and recorded the site appears to have been abandoned in the early 1950s, as the latest death date found was 1953.
In conclusion, it appears most likely that the cemetery was originally the burial place of Kirby slaves, probably also slaves from nearby Liendo Plantation. After Emancipation it continued as a burial place for black persons of the area until the 1950s.
Headstone Recordings in Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery
James Duckworth Nov. 19, 1909 Died Sept. 3, 1949
Milo Wilson, Jr. Tex. Pvt. U.S. Army WWI July 22, 1892-Nov. 8, 1953
Albert Collings Died July 5, 1922 Gone but not forgotten OLD PAP
Mrs. Mattie Wyatt Died 8-17-82
Luther B. Felder Tex. Pvt. 24th QM Group, WWII May 9, 1926 – Apr. 24, 1948
Theodore Anderson JUNETH 5 (handmade marker)
Elsie Bailey Texas Pvt. QM Corps, WWI March 31, 1892 – May 19, 1948
Memory of Caroline Wife of (stone broken) Died June 24, 1898
End Notes
1. “Map of Cemetery Area” from the District Tax Appraisal Office, Katy, Texas.
2. Stanley Holt, Assistant Superintendent for Finance, the Tax Office, Waller Independent School District, Waller, TX, November 6, 1989.
3. A History of Waller County, Texas (Hempstead, TX: Waller County Historical Survey Committee, 1973), 263.
4. Notes by Bessie Thomas, Prairie View, TX.
5. George R. Woolfolk, “Alta Vista: A Monument of Sorrow,” One Hundred One Heritage Homes of Waller County, Texas (Hempstead, TX: Waller County Historical Society, 1976), 257.
6. Interview with Dr. George R. Woolfolk, Prairie View, TX, August 1, 1989.
7. Notes by Mrs. Carrie B. Coss, September 18, 1989 – “While surveying Waller County to determine the location of the black cemeteries in this area several old citizens in the Prairie View community, all of whom are now deceased, were contacted by me I was told by these people that the cemetery on the back road from Prairie View (now referred to as the Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery) was the burial place of slaves from Liendo Plantation.”
8. Interview with Carl Detering, of Houston, at Liendo, October, 1989.
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By Alison T. Henning, Ginger Burns, Richard Hoffman, and Brian Jacoby in the Journal of History and Culture 1:2 (2009): 53-66.
Abstract
Wyatt Chapel Cemetery is an abandoned cemetery located in Prairie View, Texas. Oral histories from local residents suggest that the cemetery originated as a slave burial ground in the mid-nineteenth century. The local community is interested in examining the cemetery in order to document the history of the area. In July 2007 and February 2008, participants in a graduate course at Rice University acquired global positioning system and ground-penetrating radar data at the cemetery. The soil at the field site is ideally suited for radar work and the subsurface image quality was excellent. Numerous anomalies were identified that are consistent with unmarked burials. Two of these anomalies were excavated and confirmed as burials. The stratigraphy consists of 3-6 feet of sand overlying a hard clay, and the boundary produces a very bright reflector. In the main clearing of the cemetery site, the sand-clay boundary deepens abruptly from 3 feet to approximately 5 feet. This anomaly was initially considered a possible man-made excavation, perhaps a mass burial site. While the stratigraphy does contain abrupt terminations, most depth changes occur gradually, suggesting formation by natural processes.
The National Archives in Washington, DC; Washington, DC; Slave Manifests of Coastwise Vessels Filed at New Orleans, Louisiana, 1807-1860; Microfilm Serial: M1895; Microfilm Roll: 30.
In December 2021, we searched Ancestry.com for information about Jared Ellison Kirby, and we located the name of another person who lived at Kirby’s enslaved labor camp, Alta Vista. According to the manifest of the ship Galveston, Kirby had a 15 year-old girl named Lucinda transported from New Orleans to Galveston in May 1858.
We believe that Lucinda shows up as either Lucinda Edwards or Williams in the 1870 Census.
Source: The National Archives in Washington, DC; Washington, DC; Slave Manifests of Coastwise Vessels Filed at New Orleans, Louisiana, 1807-1860; Microfilm Serial: M1895; Microfilm Roll: 30.
Though an 1807 law banned the trans-Atlantic slave trade to the United States as of 1 January 1808, slaves could still be bought and sold (and transported) within the country. The same law that banned the foreign slave trade also regulated the internal transportation of slaves, requiring masters of vessels carrying slaves in coastal waters to provide a manifest detailing their slave cargo when leaving (“outward”) or entering (“inward”) a port. Ports of departure or intended arrival stretched from Baltimore, Maryland, to Texas on the Gulf of Mexico. Those required slave manifests, provided by ships entering or leaving from the port at New Orleans, make up the records in this database.
