New cemetery volunteer and avid photographer Christopher Atack has recently documented the Jacob Hadley cemetery in Hadley Township. The remote site was visited back in 1989, at the very start of the Chatham County Historical Association's cemetery project, but was not photographed at that time, so Christopher's photos are the first we have to document the site. (The lack of digital photography made photographing most sites impractical in the early days of the project.)

There are four graves in the walled cemetery, which is approximately 27' square--Jacob Hadley, his wife Phebe, their son Thomas, and their grandson William Justice. Burial dates range from 1848 to 1875, and the markers are professionally carved--several by Fayetteville stonecutter George Lauder. Perhaps the most striking feature of the cemetery is the wall itself, which, at approximately 4' high is taller than most others in the county, and it is mortared, whereas most cemetery walls in our area are dry-stacked. The late Siler City surveyor Rufus Johnson surveyed the cemetery in the 1990s and commented that the wall was one of the finest he had encountered. Mr. Johnson had extensive familiarity with family cemeteries in Chatham, so his opinion of this one was duly noted. We're pleased that Christopher has now photographed it so that we can share it.

The documentation on the Hadley cemetery and the burials it holds has been added to our cemetery database on CemeteryCensus.com. You can see it at: https://cemeterycensus.com/nc/chat/cem031.htm

#ChathamNCHistory #ChathamCountyNC #cemetery #Hadley #stonework