Wandering through the mountains it is hard to tell where you may come across an old family cemetery. Some burial sites are nothing more than stones in a clearing. I started thinking about the atrocity to our ancestors when thinking about Larry Gibson and his family cemetery. Headstones falling over from nearby blasts, ground crumbling - just overall disrespect. All in the name of progress - right?

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This old family cemetery is in the head of Peachtree hollow. Cemeteries much like this one are scattered throughout the hills and hollows of southern Appalachia.

I actually went looking for this site after being told about it by some friends. I was visiting a family and the lady of the house started telling stories of the cemetery. She was no longer able to make the trip to the site. She knew the general direction but otherwise I was on my own in my search. The woman had a sister that had passed away as a baby and different relatives back through her family tree were buried there.

Although there were no headstones - the site was fairly easy to find. It was the only area on the side of a mountain that was open with no growth other than moss. It didn’t take long to know I was in the right spot. As I started moving leaves aside I noticed the rocks set with love and care marking the resting place of family members. Small plastic crosses buried under time - I was sad just from the nature of my surroundings. Sorrow lingered here right along beside the hardships of a not to distant past, evident in the creek rock markers.

I sit at my home now - feel the explosions on Bolt Mountain and think about the lost cemeteries nestled into the valley of an active war zone, no longer protected by a mountain or resting in the peace intended.

In the hollows adjacent to the unmarked cemetery - also at the base of Bolt Mountain, there are a couple more cemeteries. One of those contain civil war veterans.

Note the significance of the date on the headstone. A US call to arms was issued on April 16, 1861. “To Be Forgotten” should be engraved upon this stone using a hammer and chisel
provided by King Coal.

In the other, I found children’s graves that outnumber adult graves. All of these from different times in history - Civil War, World War I & II - all but forgotten. Waiting for their turn to be completely erased - the ultimate sacrifice.

I wonder how many of our ancestors have been sacrificed or erased already? We will never know. That’s just sad and barbaric. At one time, I thought I would want to be buried under a tall oak somewhere in the mountains. I’m not so sure anymore. The mountains aren’t as forever as they used to be.

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I apologize for the morbid nature of this post but I think it is important to realize how far some people are willing to go for cheap energy. The price that we have had to pay is unimaginable and at times unbearable. To say a culture is being destroyed is the understatement of the century.

All of these photos were taken in ‘05. I was on a trip through history - in a manner of speaking. There is a lot of history scattered throughout the hills of Appalachia and some of our history is being covered by mine waste or valley fills even as I write this.

Not that I would ever do such a thing, but I wonder how fast I would go to jail if I desecrated a cemetery in Charleston, WV? Faster than I could say mountaintop removal coal mining.

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