Denton County commissioners will be discussing St. John’s Cemetery during their Tuesday meeting. It’s a space in Pilot Point where hundreds of Black residents were buried, some estimated more than 100 years ago, but getting there to maintain and preserve it has proven difficult due to boundary issues.
This comes after longtime activists Willie Hudspeth and Chelsea Stallings have asked Denton County commissioners to give public access to the cemetery, near Pilot Point on Hub Clark Road, which sits between privately owned land and gated rights of way.
Hudspeth was given a key from a landowner to access the privately owned gateway that leads to the cemetery. On Saturday, Hudspeth and Stallings hosted a cleanup event asking for residents and supporters to clean the cemetery.
Stallings shared with the Denton Record-Chronicle an email from Precinct 1 Commissioner Ryan Williams saying the cemetery was “well maintained.”
Hudspeth, though, alleges that the county isn’t using the funds to maintain the cemetery the way it claims.
Denton County commissioners formally approved the cemetery’s maintenance back on June 14, 2016. Denton County Judge Andy Eads told the Record-Chronicle in 2021 that the county spent more $100,000 on the cemetery, including maintenance and workdays.
“I want to see the receipts of what they paid for,” Hudspeth said during the Saturday cleanup.
The Record-Chronicle did not receive a response from county officials by late afternoon when asked Monday how much county money had been spent to maintain the cemetery.
“We will be discussing the St. John’s Cemetery during Commissioners Court on Tuesday,” Williams said in an email statement.
The issue also lies in whether the county leaders will address a research paper published by Jessica Luther Rummel explaining the events that led to the cemetery becoming landlocked and inaccessible to the public for more 80 years.
Rummel is a Denton area researcher and activist who, in recent years, has played a large role in social justice movements. She was also accused of defamation in 2022 in an ongoing lawsuit.
She presented her research, “St John’s Cemetery: A report detailing how Denton County Commissioner Hub Clark stole a cemetery from a Pilot Point freedpersons community in 1938,” during the public comment forum at the commissioners court meeting on Dec. 12.
“Collectively, my research suggests that Denton County Commissioner Hub Clark was a mitigating force in circumstances which led to the St. John’s African American community being denied access to their sacred space and subsequently to their ouster from the Pilot Point area altogether,” Rummel told commissioners in December.
A group of University of North Texas students released an online museum in 2018 titled “Uncovering St. John’s,” in which they conducted extensive research on the cemetery — possibly active from the 1880s to the late 1930s — and the people buried there.
Those students estimated about 400 total graves could be at the cemetery though the vast majority belong to unknown residents of the community, now represented only by stones.
“What do you think about this land being stolen?” Hudspeth asked commissioners in December. “What do you think about the borders being put there where they need to be? What do you think about the fact that we have no access? We can’t get to the land because it’s been wrongfully divided and separated. ”
Saturday’s cleanup
The cleanup event was delayed from March 16 to March 23 due to weather.
Getting to the cemetery requires a commute from FM 455 in Pilot Point and entering the private property on Hub Clark Road.
Hudspeth opened the private property gate with a key given to him by the landowners, who he said were happy he had been maintaining the cemetery. Leading the group in his 1970s Chevrolet truck, others followed for a short drive to the cemetery.
Upon arrival at the cemetery, Hudspeth, his son Anthony and activist Stallings got the cleaning equipment and opened the cemetery gate.
Before Hudspeth arrived, Stallings, a doctoral student at Texas Christian University, shared an email exchange from Williams regarding Saturday’s cleanup.
While Williams wrote to Stallings that he had met with private property owners and was moving forward with the discussion item for Tuesday’s meeting, he told Stallings they needed to request proper notice for the cleanup due to horses located on the property.
“I don’t know of any state law that requires a county acting as a liaison between property owners and a public, free-access cemetery,” Stallings replied to Williams via email. “Further, since you visited with them on Tuesday and spoke with them about the clean-up, that sounds like a full five days’ notice, so thank you for being our liaison and communicating with them. ”
“Part of my research has also involved ensuring the proper care is being given to the cemetery and that our employees and contract partners are maintaining it as directed,” Williams responded to Stallings. “When I visited the cemetery on Tuesday, it was clear it is well maintained.”
Hudspeth and his son immediately started to pick up the leaves that covered gravestones at the cemetery.
Saturday’s cleanup crew couldn’t clean the whole cemetery. They had over two dozen trash bags filled to the top of leaves before locking the gate again.
Williams did not provide comment by late Monday afternoon to the Record-Chronicle about his visit to the cemetery claiming it was “well maintained.”
Stallings believes the county leaders have something against St. John’s Cemetery.
“I personally think it’s because they [previous commissioners] had involvement in how it became landlocked,” Stallings said. “If they’re [current commissioners] celebrating other Black cemeteries but not this one — you know what the problem is.”
What does the research say?
Rummel claims commissioners don’t want to address the cemetery since they would have to acknowledge the land was previously purchased by former commissioner Hub Clark.
Her research claims fraudulent land transactions between 1918 and 1938 resulted in the cemetery becoming landlocked and inaccessible.
In 1918, the boundaries of the tract of land directly north of the cemetery were fraudulently extended south by several hundred feet during a land transaction, according to the research.
In 1938, the entire northern land tract, which included St. John’s Cemetery, was seized by the county and auctioned off, overseen by Commissioner Hub Clark. The land was sold for $600, and a few months later, Clark bought the entire land tract for $800.
According to Rummel’s report, the 1938 sale to Clark also corresponds to the last known burials found in the cemetery, which “suggests that Commissioner Clark’s acquisition of the land and the African American community’s loss of access to their cemetery were clearly connected events.”
It was unclear Monday whether or not Denton County commissioners had read Rummel’s research.
Stallings and Hudspeth said they will continue to clean the cemetery when they can and will host more cleanup events in the future. Both will be attending Tuesday’s meeting.