Editor’s Note: Western North Carolina is rich with untold stories—many resting quietly in local cemeteries. In this Tombstone Tales series, we explore the lives of people from our region’s past whose legacies, whether widely known or nearly forgotten, helped shape the place we call home.
FLAT ROCK, N.C. (828newsNOW.com) – Beneath a quiet stand of trees near Flat Rock’s oldest Episcopal church, a granite cross rises above a hillside of small white markers. It is one of the few memorials dedicated to enslaved and freed African Americans in Western North Carolina.
The Slaves and Freedmen Memorial Cross at St. John in the Wilderness Episcopal Church honors about 100 men, women and children buried in the churchyard during the 1800s. They had worshipped alongside white parishioners, but most of their graves were originally marked only by native fieldstones, with no engravings or names…