Helping Hand Cemetery

Southampton County · dedicated 2022 · 21448 Main St., Courtland

Six African American trustees purchased this land in 1897 and established The Courtland Colored Cemetery, renamed Helping Hand Cemetery in 1912. The Helping Hand Club, a benevolent organization founded by educator Ersulia Wynn Evans, offered health and burial insurance to community members. Among the approximately 650 persons interred here is Pvt. Solomon Stevens, who escaped from slavery in Southampton Co. during the Civil War, served in the Union Army, and in 1913 sold a parcel of land to the Helping Hand trustees to enlarge the cemetery. Also buried here are about 55 other military veterans, Nottoway Indians whose ancestral lands were in this area, and educators, activists, and entrepreneurs.

David Rumsey Map Collection, Stanford Libraries

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under a mile from where William Gabby lived in the 1760s

what this marker records spans 1777 to 1789, overlapping William Gabby's years here

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