Clemson students to clean slave cemetery; preserve heritage

Published: February 14, 2011

Clemson students will clean up and sketch-map this slave cemetery at Soapstone Baptist Church Saturday. image by: Clemson University

CLEMSON — Lost stories of slaves and their descendants may come to light after students in the Anthropology Club at Clemson University participate in a cleanup service project in the Liberia community of northern Pickens County.

Beginning at 11 a.m. Saturday, Feb. 19, student volunteers will clean and sketch-map the historic slave cemetery at Soapstone Baptist Church.

“The students will rake, measure, identify and draw in as many graves as they can,” said anthropology professor Mike Coggeshall. “The project provides an opportunity for students to work on a real site using skills from archeological, biological and cultural classes.”

Clemson archeologist Melissa Vogel and Clemson forensic anthropologist Katy Weisensee will supervise the project.

“We hope to identify any patterns in the gravesites, such as family clusters, and create a map of the cemetery for preservation purposes,” said Coggeshall. “Since the cemetery is part of the Liberia community, which is on the South Carolina Heritage Corridor, we also want to document, preserve and interpret the sites for regional tourism.”

The department of sociology and anthropology is in the College of Business and Behavioral Science at Clemson. This cleanup project is one of the first formal activities of the recently established Anthropology Club.

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