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Cemetery burns behind Tabernacle PDF Print E-mail
Written by DeadGirl   
Monday, 13 March 2006
On Friday, February 25, weather conditions in Black Mountain, NC, were perfect for a brush fire. At approximately 1 p.m., a cigarette was tossed onto the ground in a private cemetery behind the Tabernacle United Methodist Church, causing a fire that burned the wooden grave markers and melted the plastic markers on other graves.

Gary Bartlett, Black Mountain Public Safety Director, reported that the fire had burned a 200-by-100 foot area by the time the department arrived at the blaze. Ron Shelton, the vice-president of the Old Buncombe County Genealogical Society (OBCGS), is part of an organization that looks for cemeteries and catalogues names and dates of the people buried in Buncombe County for genealogical records. Shelton estimated that the society has discovered approximately 300 abandoned cemeteries in Buncombe County, including the private cemetery in Black Mountain.

In mid February, the genealogical society discovered the private cemetery as they visited a “pauper cemetery,” also adjacent to the Tabernacle United Methodist Cemetery. Shelton reports that the private cemetery had a number of infant graves. The society was able to document over 100 people who were buried at the cemetery, including Guffeys, Robinsons, Wrights, and Weavers.

“We were trying to get a list of the paupers’ cemetery, and we noticed this other cemetery, and the grass had grown up pretty good around it,” Shelton said. “We came back and found it burned. A couple of the wooden crosses were burned up. We were just concerned in case vandals had done it.”

Bartlett confirmed from their department’s investigation that the fire was started accidently.

The Black Mountain Fire Department received the emergency call at 1:32 p.m., and were on the scene within eight minutes The fire was out within seven minutes of the fire truck arriving. Bartlett stated that the fire department could have had a shorter response time, except the person who called in the blaze was confused as to the location of the fire.

Richard Ploch, the pastor at Tabernacle United Methodist Church, said that the cemetery was not part of the church’s property.

Shelton, who is still looking to collect data on the cemetery, is hoping for someone to call the OBCGS and give them more information about the name of the cemetery and people who were buried there.

SOURCE: Black Mountain News
 
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