Welcome to Fox-Hembry Cemetery. Our story begins at the Fox Plantation. J.K. Fox owned about a dozen slaves, the offspring of captured Africans. Because of a compromise in the U.S. Constitution, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was outlawed 25 years after the foundation of our current government. Affluent plantation owners could no longer easily replace their labor source. This required them to treat their African slaves slightly more decently. Instead of working the slaves to death in the heat and ordering more, they had to make sure their slaves were comfortable enough to reproduce and continue providing them labor for decades to come.
According to this Denton County History Blog, J.K. Fox was not like other slave owners. He "was credited with being an 'enlightened' slave owner because he allowed his slaves to attend church and receive an education, which resulted in many of them continuing to work for him post-Civil War and take his last name." We today will never know how kind of a person Mr. Fox was, however this claim comes from a credible source.
Whatever the reason, practical or "compassionate", when Fox's slave Malinda (1831-1845) died at the age of 14, he gave her a Christian burial. This became the first grave at "Fox-Hembry Cemetery", where you will visit to find this cache. She is not the only slave buried here, at this still active cemetery. You will see many of the same last names if you explore the grounds- Hembry, Fox, Craft. These were the families of that enslaved labor source. There are probably several unmarked graves at this cemetery, but at least 11 human beings buried here were born as slaves.
One of Fox's slaves, Cassandra Fox from "the Carribean", gave birth to at least five children in America and some of them are permanent residents here. Ida Mae, Julia, Mary Jane, Adeline and Scott. Cassandra was carried with her owner from Kentucky, where some of her children were born, to Texas. According to that Denton Co. blog, "she was originally buried in Old Hickory Cemetery, but when Lake Dallas was impounded in the 1920s, her grave was moved to Macedonia Cemetery, where it bears no marker."
After the Civil War, the Fox family bought the plot in 1895 and this place became Lewisville's Black Cemetery. As Jim Crow replaced formal subjugation, these families struggled to provide a better life for their children. One former slave buried here named Anthony Hembry (1856-1916) "was an 1882 founding member of the Lewisville Lane Chapel Colored Methodist Episcopal Church" according to his find-a-grave profile. He married Ida Mae Fox and she also co-founded the church. Here is a photo of the Fox family outside their house, c. 1905:
The previous cache here GC22XGY had a tale to tell. Archived in 2018, that cache had 150+ visitors and caused one broken leg. For those who found that cache, I hope you enjoy my iteration! If you search those logs like I did, you will notice mentions and pictures of rubbish outside the cemetery. There is also mention of a 20-year-old hate crime, where several tombstones were vandalized. If you visit Julia Fox Patterson Watkins resting place, the top of their tombstone is resting on the base.
This is still an active cemetery. The most recent burial at this time was Trazell Clark Jr., who drowned while fishing in Lake Lewisville July 2020. Despite its use, the cemetery is fairly remote and out of the way. Fox-Hembry made the news in 2011 when volunteers meet to remove all the trash from the area. When I first visited this place, I noticed the dump pile was back, just outside the cemetery.
I even found an overturned port-a-poty.
I want to organize a CITO event here if I can attain permission and interest especially from cachers with trucks. I will work to schedule that subject to local SARSII surges. A true solution to the problem would be constructing a thin barbed wire fence parallel to the tree line, to further thwart trashy people dumping trash. There seems to still be development SW of the cemetery, I am not sure what that is about. Maybe "they" will solve the problem.
Now that you have waded through the context, it's time for the usual disclaimer:
The Cache Is Not at the Posted Coordinates!
To solve this puzzle, just answer this straightforward question.
Which of these is known about Malinda, based on her tombstone?
Her Birth Date: N 33 03.574 W 097 00.516
Her Death Date: N 33 03.568 W 097 00.532
Feel free to message me for help in solving this cache, and thank you to 'drives' for the container. I reserve the right to delete any online log based on integrity and am not forcing you to submit to risk and find this cache. Take the time to hunt a cache and reflect on the temporary splendor of life.
Congrats to auctnr for the FTF!