Foye

Foye Cemetery

Cemetery = Foye Cemetery

Vicinity = Hilliardville E

Status = abandoned

Community = Afr. Amer.

Gravestones are visible from the west edge of the horse lot of Billy and Judy Boyer at 794 Bloxham Cutoff, this a little west of Black Creek and on the north side of that highway. The stones are perhaps 25 yards west of the Boyer's west line, and some depressions appearing consistent with graves begin only 15 yards, or so, from that line. (A GPS fix of the site tabulated elsewhere herein is by projection from a fix of that west line of the Boyer property at a spot approximating due east of the graves.)

Persons formerly well acquainted with the property on which this feature lies say that the taller stone (of two now visible) is inscribed to Aaron Foye, whose grave also has a foot marker of concrete, and that another headstone a few yards away also is inscribed. They report that there were formerly wooden markers for other graves at the site. The Aaron Foye stone looks perhaps 18 inches tall and 12 inches wide.

The patch of sparkleberry and young water oak over the graves here probably indicates old cropland. This spot of such growth appears to have been spared from timbering or partial clearing of the surrounding land. The spot is due west of a point on the Boyer's west line that is about 40 yards north of the southwest corner of their 12 1/2 acre parcel. The graves may be no more than 100-200 yards north of Bloxham Cutoff.

The owner of the 10-acre parcel (tax roll) containing the old cemetery says he has a survey of designated boundaries of the cemetery itself, and wishes the county government to take title to it. He says he is told that it is an African-American graveyard.

Buck Miller (b.1917) of Riversink is one person acquainted with the site; his family formerly owned the land. He says it is an African-American graveyard that contains the grave of a woman he knew as Aunt Foye, and that of her son Ollie. He says that the woman lived north of New Light Church Rd. (he mentions Edna Lockwood as a woman associated by place of residence or somehow). He says some of the graves had wood "paling" markers. Harley Brown of Sanborn, who formerly lived near Hilliardville and was acquainted somehow with this site, also believes it is an African-American graveyard. He says that there was a lot of broken glass from the colored glass articles that ornamented graves.

Date of site report narrative - May 2002

Surveyed by members of the WCHS, November 2007

Comments! Questions! Corrections! Email Us at mailbox@wakullahistory.org