First of all, as with all cemetery hides, please be respectful! Nothing is placed on any grave markers and you are not required to climb on any grave markers. Also, this cemetery has been vandalized recently, so it would probably look suspicious if you visit it at night. Do this one in daylight.
I stumbled across this cemetery as I was searching for a place to hide a recent cache of mine, Turtle Power, which is just around the corner. After doing a little research this cemetery seemed like a perfect hide for Black History Month. Hopefully, you'll learn some of the history behind this place while hunting for this cache.
THE HISTORY:
Oak Grove Cemetery is a small forgotten community cemetery that has fallen into disrepair. It's about an acre in size and still active. The most recent headstone I saw was added in 2016.
As you walk around you'll notice that the ground is very uneven and rough and everything has an aura of neglect. Some headstones are broken, or falling over. Many are illegible. Other graves are marked only with simple funeral home markers. There are also some completely unmarked graves on this plot of land. There are a few more elaborate headstones, but overall you will get a sense that this is not the resting site of people of privilege.
The cemetery houses many of the early residents of Method, a historic 69-acre village community founded by freed African-Americans shortly after Emancipation.
A brief history of Method and Oak Grove Cemetery:
- 1872 - Method is founded by freedmen Jesse Mason and Isaac O'Kelly along what is now Method Road. They sell subdivided tracts of land to African-Americans as a more affordable option to housing in Raleigh proper. In these early years it is known variously as Slabtown, Save-Rent, and Mason Village.
- 1890 - The community is renamed Method by the Norfolk and Southern Railroad.
- 1910 - The Berry O'Kelly Training School in Method opens and eventually becomes the first black public high school accredited by the state.
- 1960 - The Method community is annexed into the city of Raleigh.
- 1966 - As a result of school integration, the Berry O'Kelly Training School closes.
- 1982 - Much of the school is demolished to build the new Method Park and Community Center.
- 2009 - Dozens of the headstones at Oak Grove Cemetery are knocked over by vandals.
- 2013 - Plans to widen I-440 that involved carving into the Method Park and Community Center cause an uproar in the community. They respond by spearheading an effort to get the park named to the National Register of Historic Places, thus saving it from interstate development.
- 2016 - A team of archaeologists use ground-penetrating radar to survey the extent of unmarked graves in the cemetery.
I tried to search for information about some of the individuals buried here, but found almost nothing. Lafayette Ligon is notable as one of the earliest settlers of Method and Ligon Street is named after his family. The Berry O'Kelly buried here is not THE Berry O'Kelly of the Berry O'Kelly Training School (his grave is actually at the former school site), but was presumably named after him. Other than that, my search came up empty.
THE CACHE:
Depending on your preference, you can either use the coords provided with each virtual stage, or simply seek out the names listed by walking around. It's a small cemetery so it won't take that long.
The final location and physical cache is located at N 35° 47.ABC' W 78° 41.DEF'
- Stage 1 - Lafayette Ligon - The oldest marker in the cemetery
A = Lafayette's numeric month of death
- Stage 2 - Donald Russell Lee - A young man who died at the age of 25
B = last digit of Donald's year of birth
- Stage 3 - Baby O'Kelly - A tiny grave marker at the foot of the parents' graves
C = the father's numeric month of birth
D = the mother's numeric month of death
- Stage 4 - A B - A marker that simply has the initials A B on it
E = 10 less than the number of glass beads in a horizontal line on the headstone
- Stage 5 - Milton Thomas - A small hand-scribed grave stone
F = The numeric month of Milton's death
FTF BONUS:
As a special First to Find bonus I've placed a nice little bit of swag from the new Black Panther superhero movie. If possible, I'd really like it to go to someone excited about the movie. So, if you're not really interested in it, consider leaving it for the next finder. Thanks!
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