Buford, Halloween & Community Ties

This wouldn't truly be a Halloween themed blog about the museum or Buford's history if I didn't say something about the Buford Cemetery. Nothing scary or ghost related, however. I'll leave that to other writers.

Buford Cemetery:

To save space, I won't write pages about why I love Southern cemeteries, or how I can pinpoint my infatuation for local history to one grave in particular. But I do, indeed, love Buford Cemetery (known as both Hillcrest and Buford City Cemetery).  Interestingly, the site is considered to be the birthplace of the City of Buford. In the late 1820's, Silas King became the first non-Native American to live on land inside what is now the Buford City limits.The first buildings were erected on King's land, and much of what is now known as Historic Downtown Buford was within his original 250 acres. King was an influential clergyman who was active in the establishment of Baptist churches not only in the Buford area, but also in Hall and Habersham Counties. The Buford City Cemetery originated with the King family plot, "carefully selected at the highest point [of land], with the mandatory cedars..."* and was extended out from there. Hillcrest Cemetery, or "the newer section" was established in 1938 on land bordering the Buford City Cemetery to the northeast.

Walking through the Buford Cemetery today is like taking a tour of the history of the city. Silus King's marker still stands, as do those of many of Buford's former citizens, notable and otherwise. Findagrave.com, an invaluable source for genealogical research, has a list as well as photographs and other information  on 975 graves within the Buford and Hillcrest cemeteries. If you're interested in learning more about the city's forefathers, or even your own family ties to Buford's past,  the library at the Museum of Buford has books on Gwinnett County Families, Deaths, and Census Records from the early 1800's through the 1980's. Museum Curator Lynn Bowman is also an outstanding resource for most anything to do with Buford's earliest families.

Buford and Halloween:

Returning to the holiday theme, I was looking through the files at the museum for anything that might be Halloween related in Buford's history, and came across a piece in a 1969 "Howler"-- Buford High School's newsletter, printed in the requisite green and white. According to the newsletter, the Halloween carnival that year was held in the school gym, with various booths and games set up to raise money for different class clubs. Participants would have seen "all sorts of miniature ghosts and goblins" (the elementary school kids) as they played "pick up boats" or "fish pond," while the older carnival goers visited the haunted house or the fortune teller. Future Homemakers of America girls sold homemade fudge, the Senior class held a cake walk, and the evening was topped off by the crowning of the Beta Club Carnival King and Queen. Having been in high school during the late '60's myself (although not in Georgia), reading about the carnival made me nostalgic for such simple pleasures. I imagine most all  the students and parents who went to the BHS carnival that night knew almost everyone else there, at least in passing. These days with the mega-corn mazes and commercially operated, elaborate-as-a-Hollywood-movie-set-Haunted Houses, Halloween is often  more about the individual Experience, rather than the community gathering. Not always, of course, and not that there's anything wrong with mega mazes or haunted houses, or Experience, for that matter. Finding that old newsletter, however, reminded me how museums are as much about preserving our history as they are about preserving our sense of community.

This was really brought home to me on Saturday afternoon when a friend and I came across a family from Duluth searching the graves at the Buford Cemetery. Mom, dad, four kids of varying ages, all going from headstone to headstone, pieces of paper in their hands. Thinking to be helpful, we asked who they were searching for. I was elated to hear that they were on a scavenger hunt of sorts, and not as part of a bigger group, but just as a family. The parents had made an advance trip to the cemetery, picked out a unique name on a grave, and planned the scavenger hunt as a family activity. It was a way to give their children a sense of connection to the past and to each other as they worked together find the name and pointed out interesting headstones to each other. What a great way to spend the pre-Halloween Saturday! Something I hope lives in their memories a lot longer than a trip to a Hollywood inspired Haunted House would have done.

Naturally, I suggested a future family outing to the Museum of Buford!

Rebecca

*Historic Buford, Handsel G. Morgan (City of Buford, 1993), on sale at the museum or City Hall for $35.

The Museum of Buford recently moved from it's basement home on Main Street into the new Buford Community Center. As of October 1st, 2012, the Museum is open from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thurs--Sat.