Historical Claiborne Cemetery was heavily damaged in July 1972

Old Claiborne Cemetery in Monroe County, Alabama.

(For decades, local historian and paranormal investigator George “Buster” Singleton published a weekly newspaper column called “Somewhere in Time.” The column below, which was titled “Historical Claiborne Cemetery is damaged” was originally published in the July 20, 1972 edition of The Monroe Journal in Monroeville, Ala.)

The peace and solitude that abounds around the Old Claiborne Cemetery was shattered last week by the angry snarl of the power saw, as the sharp whirling teeth bit into the trunks of the tall majestic pines that have stood for a hundred years among the final resting places of Monroe County’s earliest citizens. Before the shadows fell that day, most of these silent sentinels would feel the teeth of the logger’s axe. They were to fall across the very graves that they had protected and sheltered for well over a century. Their falling branches were to break and shatter most of the few remaining tombs that marked the plots in the City of Sleep.

The powerful machinery was to dig and gouge through the light turf as the heavy logs were dragged and pulled through the mounds and crypts, destroying or disfiguring everything in their path. Large piles of brush were to be pushed across the grave of a dear old lady, who had not many years before, selected the spot where she would sleep and wait for the final roll call of Eternity. The wheel of a huge skidder crushed into bits the small pot that held the lone artificial flower, placed there in tribute at the head of her grave.

And a short distance away, the same wheel was to break in two the marble slab that marked the burial place of a man whose descendants still live in the county today. The great old ironwood tree that had shaded the grave of Emily Bagby, wife of a governor, was cut down and dragged, to be left to hang crazily on the rim of the deep (gorge) known as the North Gorge.

The tomb of the Broken Hearted Stranger, of which many stories have been told, would lean at an awkward angle, the victim of a blow from the heavy machinery. The huge tire tracks were criss-cross the old cemetery, mashing beneath their paths countless unmarked graves of old Caliborne’s women and children, who were victims of the dread fever.

The few remaining markers were to point upward through the limbs and brush as though they were reaching skyward for the help that wasn’t coming. The sleep of the departed had been disturbed.

Yes, the old cemetery on the hill, overlooking the river, one of the most historical spots of Monroe County, is passing into oblivion. Visited by thousands who come and return again for reasons not known, it will soon be wasted away. The ties with the past will soon be broken, and all that will remain will be a memory to the few who care. And these pitiful few will look into the empty space where the grey granite makers once stood, and they will know that man had passed this way, and the place thereof shall know it no more.

[This column also included two photos, taken by Charles R. Floyd, of the heavily damaged Claiborne cemetery. The caption beneath the first photo read as follows: Portion of damage to tombs at Claiborne. The second photo caption said: Fallen trees shatter headstone at Claiborne Cemetery.]

(Singleton, the author of the 1991 book “Of Foxfire and Phantom Soldiers,” passed away at the age of 79 on July 19, 2007. A longtime resident of Monroeville, he was born to Vincent William Singleton and Frances Cornelia Faile Singleton, during a late-night thunderstorm, on Dec. 14, 1927 in Marengo County, graduated from Sweet Water High School in 1946, served as a U.S. Marine paratrooper in the Korean War, worked as a riverboat deckhand, lived for a time among Apache Indians, moved to Monroe County on June 28, 1964 and served as the administrator of the Monroeville National Guard unit from June 28, 1964 to Dec. 14, 1987. He was promoted from the enlisted ranks to warrant officer in May 1972. For years, Singleton’s columns, titled “Monroe County history – Did you know?” and “Somewhere in Time” appeared in The Monroe Journal, and he wrote a lengthy series of articles about Monroe County that appeared in Alabama Life magazine. It’s believed that his first column appeared in the March 25, 1971 edition of The Monroe Journal. He is buried in Pineville Cemetery in Monroeville. The column above and all of Singleton’s other columns are available to the public through the microfilm records at the Monroe County Public Library in Monroeville. Singleton’s columns are presented here each week for research and scholarship purposes and as part of an effort to keep his work and memory alive.)