City may take over two cemeteries intertwined with Decatur's history

Jun. 9—The Dancy-Garth Cemetery and Magnolia-Sykes Cemetery are the final resting places for one of the city's founding fathers and some of its most prominent Black citizens, and now there's a push for the city to take over these privately owned properties.

If the city controlled the two historic cemeteries, their maintenance could be improved and they would better qualify for state historic grants, local officials and historians said.

The Dancy-Garth Cemetery, located off Danville Road Southwest just south of Roselawn Cemetery, is the family cemetery of Jesse Winston Garth, one of Decatur's founding fathers and the city's first state senator.

Also buried in the cemetery with the Garth family are related members of the Sykes and Dancy families, two other prominent families in Decatur's early history.

Magnolia-Sykes Cemetery, located on Old Moulton Road, was the city's first all-Black cemetery. Several former Union soldiers from the Civil War and veterans of World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars are buried there, local historian Peggy Towns said Tuesday.

Well-known Principal Benjamin Davis also is buried at Magnolia-Sykes. Westlawn Elementary was renamed Benjamin Davis Elementary (now a magnet school) in honor of the popular principal.

"Pretty much every single (Black) person who lived in Decatur from 1901 to 1965 was buried there," Towns said. This included Towns' grandmother, Bertha Polk Lyle, the city's first Black female preacher.

Caroline Swope, the city's historic preservation specialist, told the Decatur City Council recently that both cemeteries are on the Alabama Historic Cemetery Register so they qualify for up to $75,000 from the Alabama Historical Commission's 2023 Historic Sites grant.

However, Swope said she doubts the city could get the full amount because of the high demand for the grants. The grant application is due at the end of this month.

The grant application says projects eligible for the grant include painting, interpretive sign installation, vegetation removal, cemetery cleaning/repairing, erecting fencing or monuments and providing educational programming.

Swope said it's important, although not completely necessary, that the city gain control of the two privately owned cemeteries for grant eligibility.

John Allison, executive director of the Morgan County Archives, said the Morgan County Historical Association became aware about five years ago that the Garth Family Cemetery had fallen in disrepair and was overgrown with vegetation.

"It was pretty far gone," Allison said. "You could barely walk in there because of the weeds, small trees and undergrowth. We know all of the undergrowth occurred since the 1960s because we have an old Decatur Daily that shows it in the middle of a cotton field."

Phil Wirey, a local historian with an emphasis on the city's cemeteries, said he and some of his fellow county Historical Association members have worked on Dancy-Garth. He said Michael Coulter, a history professor in Dalton, Georgia, came to Decatur several times and worked on the Garth graveyard.

"(Association member) Kendall Bass hired (county) inmates to clean it up once," Wirey said.

Vandals hit the Dancy-Garth Cemetery in 2011, pushing over and damaging the monuments and headstones. This included a roughly 10-foot-tall obelisk — a stone rectangular pillar with a tapered top forming a pyramidion and set on a base — that was erected to commemorate Jesse W. Garth.

"We would like the city to rebuild the four or five damaged monuments," Wirey said.

The 6-acre Magnolia-Sykes Cemetery is located at the corner of Old Moulton Road and Second Street Southwest. It was the primary burial place for Blacks until 1965 when the Sterrs Memorial addition was added to the Decatur City Cemetery, Towns wrote in the application for state's Historic Cemetery Register.

J.J. Sykes, a prominent Black businessman, and his brother Solomon Sharper Sykes bought the land in 1901 in response to the then-new Alabama Constitution that banned allowing whites and Blacks to be buried together, Towns said.

At the time, the land was just outside of Decatur and in the Moulton Heights area and some residents didn't want a cemetery.

"He was quoted in the local newspaper: 'J.J. Sykes barks against the powers that be and declared, "The Negroes must bury their dead somewhere, what are they to do?"'" Towns said.

The article, published Oct. 4, 1901, in the New Decatur Advertiser, says the issue of whether Sykes could turn property into a Black cemetery went before the town commission, but the commissioners decided they didn't have any authority to block his plans.

Sykes "even offered to sell" the property "at a moderate profit, but no purchaser appears," the article says.

J.J. Sykes' name appeared on the list of potentially "qualified Black jurors" in the Scottsboro Boys trial held in Decatur, Towns wrote in her cemetery register application.

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Property still in Garth family

Wirey said the only known living Garth ancestor is Winston Garth, who lives in Pensacola, Florida.

Winston Garth has indicated he's willing to give 2 acres where the cemetery is to the city while keeping the remaining 18 acres that's the former Garth plantation, Wirey said.

The Garth plantation was one of the city's most prominent at one time. John Knox's "A History of Morgan County, Alabama," says Garth's home near Danville Road "was one of the earliest landmarks to appear on the published maps of the region."

Knox writes that Jesse Garth was born Oct. 17, 1788, in Albemarle, Virginia, and he was a cousin of Patrick Henry. After serving in the War of 1812 and the Virginia Legislature, he migrated to Decatur in 1815.

Jesse W. Garth, who married Unity Spotswood Dandridge, was a farmer who became one of the first two attorneys in Cotaco County, which later became Morgan County. He was president of the state's first Senate. He served as a delegate in the statehood convention in 1819. He was the first president of Decatur's State Bank.

Garth's son-in-law, Dr. Francis W. Sykes, also served in the state Legislature. He was a state representative in 1855-56 and 1861-65. He was state senator in 1865-66 and served as a delegate in the state constitutional convention in 1875.

Sykes was elected to the United States Senate after the Civil War, "but a radical Senate refused him his seat."

Both cemeteries are in Councilman Billy Jackson's District 1, and he said the historical importance makes them valuable to the city. A previous City Council attempt to gain control of both ran into obstacles and the transfers never occurred.

"It needs to be done, and it's something that should have been done decades ago. It's critical we get something done," said Jackson, whose has relatives from the Kimber family buried at Magnolia-Sykes.

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Visible cemetery

Jackson said everyone who travels Old Moulton Road or Second Street Southwest sees the Magnolia-Sykes Cemetery. This cemetery is also next to the 20-home Seville subdivision.

Once the site of the Stonegate public housing project, Seville is a 20-home subdivision for low-to-moderate-income residents that the city is developing in collaboration with the Community Action Partnership of North Alabama.

Jackson said Magnolia-Sykes's condition could influence a visitor's decision on whether to move to Decatur.

"If it looks bad, that leaves a negative impression," Jackson said.

Parks and Recreation Director Jason Lake, whose department manages Decatur City Cemetery and would become responsible for the two private cemeteries, said, "If you know you have a cemetery in town, the right thing to do is to take care of it. Sykes is more noticeable, but Garth is a pretty neat little cemetery."

City Attorney Herman Marks said Monday that the transfer of the Garth cemetery will be easier because there's living ancestor who seems to be willing to give up the property.

However, Magnolia-Sykes doesn't appear to have a living owner. The last contact with a possible Sykes ancestor was more than 20 years ago, Marks said.

"The tax assessor doesn't even have any records (on Magnolia-Sykes)," Marks said. "Our understanding is there haven't been any property taxes paid."

Marks said the Morgan County Revenue Office or state could auction the Magnolia-Sykes Cemetery because the property taxes weren't paid "but it's a cemetery. Who wants to take possession of that?"

— bayne.hughes@decaturdaily.com or 256-340-2432. Twitter @DD_BayneHughes.