Historic York church is piecing the past together, one gravesite at a time

Patrice Gaines heard voices as she drove along S.C. Highway 274, voices she tried to ignore. A member of Allison Creek Presbyterian Church in York, she often shares this story with the congregation.

“I think those voices Patrice heard were the prayers of the folks buried in Clay Hill Graveyard and of their ancestors who were saying, ‘Don’t forget about us, we tell a story that needs to be told,’” Allison Creek Presbyterian Church Rev. Sam McGregor said.

The church has been telling their stories. Next Saturday, the David Pankey Trio headlines the first show in a jazz series the church is launching to help ensure those voices never fade away.

Built by slave owners in 1854, the church’s sanctuary included a balcony where slaves separately attended services. Around 100 years later, Allison Creek declared itself segregated. Today, its integrated congregation not only worships together, but is piecing together a patchwork of local black history.

The gravesites were always common knowledge – scattered headstones of deceased enslaved and freed blacks scattered throughout the woods. But the breadth of Clay Hill Graveyard began to emerge 15 years ago.

“When we started to seriously explore it and clear it out, we discovered there were about 300 gravesites in the cemetery,” McGregor said. “That led us down an amazing road of discovery about the folks who were buried there and their descendants.”

One gravesite belongs to Dorcas Hill, whose husband bought his freedom in 1840, then bought hers and the freedom of their son, Elias. Elias was a dwarf; It was speculated he was born with polio or muscular dystrophy, records show. He taught himself to read and write and later became a teacher, a Baptist minister and an early civil rights leader.

“The KKK got wind of what he was preaching and, in 1871, they beat him to a pulp,” McGregor said. “Elias testified against the KKK in front of a federal judge who convicted the Klan members and put them in prison.”

Concerned about the safety of blacks in York County, Elias led a migration of 166 people to Liberia in west Africa. The country was founded as an independent state about 30 years earlier by abolitionists who thought former slaves would have a better quality of life in Africa as opposed to the U.S. McGregor and Gaines recently traveled to Liberia, where they visited gravesites and spoke with ancestors of the York immigrants.

McGregor said Clay Hill Graveyard is a centerpiece of Common Ground, an area where the congregation has built walking trails, prayers stations and placed markers telling the stories of those buried.

“For whatever reason we have been gifted with the responsibility of telling the stories of these folks. It’s not just their story, it’s a story that’s transforming Allison Creek,” McGregor said. “We are an integrated congregation, one that is truly involved in building bridges and breaking down barriers in our community.”

This story was originally published October 18, 2017 at 7:02 PM with the headline "Historic York church is piecing the past together, one gravesite at a time."