Fort Hill Cemetery Tours took visitors back in time
On Oct. 25, Lee University students took Cleveland back in time at the 20th annual Fort Hill Cemetery Walking Tour.
In acknowledgement of America’s 250th birthday, students portrayed Cleveland families who organized America’s centennial celebration in 1876. This celebration occurred only 11 years after the Civil War, so reenactors told fascinating stories about the conflict.
“We have one guy that went north to Kentucky and volunteered and fought for the Union the entire way. We have another guy that raised a company of troops and fought all the way to the bitter end for the Confederacy. And yet they're all sitting together, working on celebrations at the end. This is why we do the tours. Just a lot of people that don't know the history,” said Dr. John Coats, history professor and chair of the department of history, political science, and humanities.
Coats and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Dr. Randy Wood organize the tour.
This tour is a service learning project for senior history majors in their Capstone class. Students researched a family, wrote a paper, and acted as a family member at the tour.
Chloe Sabo represented William and Juilett “Julia” McKamy. Sabo found the project both fun and challenging.
“I really enjoyed getting to research these people who I knew absolutely nothing about … I loved the challenge of picking and choosing, finding what was what I wanted to highlight about their lives and tell the people who were going through the cemetery tour,” said Sabo.
Chloe Sabo portrayed Juliett “Julia” McKamy.
Part of the fun of the project was watching people’s reactions to shocking stories.
“One of the things that I told that got one of the biggest reactions was that while he was fighting in the Civil War, William McKamy contracted gangrene,” said Sabo.
History education major Audrey Duncan represented Jesse Franklin and Mollie Cleveland. Visitors found Jesse’s story particularly fascinating due to his actions during the Civil War. Jesse supplied the Confederate Army with wheat and also burned the Hiwassee Bridge in Charleston, a key Confederate supply route.
“It was that kind of duality that made a lot of people raise their eyebrows. That was fun just to show people how complex people's lives are in all points in history, and how conflicts like this express that,” said Duncan.
Audrey Duncan portrayed Mollie Cleveland.
Duncan purposefully used the Cleveland family’s story to illustrate how moral complexity is what makes people human.
“When you're studying people in the past, it can be super easy to look at someone and go, ‘Oh, they lived an ordinary life for a person at that time,’ when in reality, I don't believe that there are any ordinary people any point in time, or any, or even today, and so that was the point that I kind of wanted to drive home,” said Duncan.
This year’s Fort Hill Cemetery Walking Tour was marked by stories of war, family, community, and complex morals. Consider attending next year’s tour for more fascinating history.
Photos by Emme Lowder.
