History with ‘Hud’: Digging up the story behind Wilmington’s oldest rural cemetery
WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — This past Wednesday marked 171 years since Wilmington’s Oakdale Cemetery was chartered on December 27, 1852 by the General Assembly of North Carolina. The site is the oldest rural cemetery in the entire state, originally being developed from 65 acres of land located five blocks outside the Wilmington city limits.
The ground was purchased for $1,100 out of necessity as the burial grounds closer to the Port City’s downtown began to fill up. The oldest burial site in the area, St. James Parish Churchyard, started running out of room in the late 1840s, with the last person being laid to rest there in 1850 (though some people would later be relocated to Oakdale Cemetery as late as 1923).
The first person buried in the new Oakdale Cemetery was 6-year-old Annie DeRosset, the daughter of the first president of the cemetery. She was buried on February 5, 1855 with a small lamb on top of her lily white grave marker, etched with the phrase, ‘Our Little Annie’.
As the Civil War got underway six years later, the cemetery would not only start to fill out, but it would become an essential part of the city’s handling of the dead.
For a time, the cemetery held both Union and Confederate dead of the area, especially following the Battle of Fort Fisher. But soon after the war, the Confederate soldiers were dug up and buried together under a bronze monument erected by the Ladies Memorial Association in 1872. The Union soldiers were also eventually removed and transferred to the Wilmington National Cemetery on Market Street – a decision showing the deep divides still existing after the war.
Among the hundreds of other gravestones lies an open field with no markers used as a mass grave for hundreds of the 654 victims of the yellow fever epidemic in 1862. Each day during the outbreak numerous bodies would be wheeled to Oakdale Cemetery and buried in a spot opened for that day or week. The period between 1862 and 1867 would also become a blind spot for the cemetery’s records, after the superintendent, Charles Quigley, fell victim to the yellow fever himself and war kept records from being properly kept.
But records clearly show some of the region’s biggest names who wound up there.
The Bellamys, Sprunts and Kenans were all laid to rest in hard-to-miss plots. The cemetery would also be the final home of figures like Katherine Mayo Cowan, the first and only woman to be mayor of Wilmington; David Brinkley, a landmark television journalist; and Arthur Bluethenthal, the first Wilmington man killed in World War One.
There are also two people with graves who arrived to the cemetery under unique circumstances.
Dr. William Crawford Willkings is believed to be the last person killed in a duel in North Carolina, winding up in Oakdale. He gave a speech at a Democratic rally on April 30, 1856, accusing the American Party of jeopardizing public health for the sake of a dollar. Joseph H. Flanner published a classified ad calling Willkings a liar, and Willkings challenged him to a duel. The duel was held across state lines in South Carolina. Each man fired three rounds, and the fatal shot hit Willkings in the lung.
One of the most outlandish stories of a person buried in the cemetery is Nancy Martin, the daughter of a local lumberer, who was buried after legend says she died at sea and was placed in a barrel of whiskey or rum to preserve her body for the journey back to Wilmington. Instead of breaking her free when she got home, the barrel was placed in a special grave and sealed shut, marked by a granite cross that reads “Nance.”
As the cemetery began to hold more and more bodies, residents used the site over the years as a park, to enjoy nature and the company of friends as they strolled through the markers. The custom goes back to ancient Egypt, where in Alexandria, tombs were a place where families gathered, picnicked, and socialized, in a way, keeping alive the shared memories of friends and family.
Today, with a total of 165 acres, Oakdale Cemetery is the final resting spot for at least 20,000 people. It remains an active cemetery and has nearly 100 funerals a year. Its grounds are expected to have enough room for generations to come.
