The Prewitt Slave Cemetery (PSC)

"On a gentle bluff overlooking the northern shore of Lake Tuscaloosa is the PSC, the final resting place of 828 enslaved people and their descendants. Plantation owner and slave trader John Welch Prewitt (photo on the left - if using a mobile device (photo is above)), who was said to have owned more than 600 enslaved people, established the burial ground in the 1820s. The Prewitt estate was located a few feet uphill from the cemetery, and once covered more than 6,000 acres north of Northport, and burned down in the 1940s".

Location

To get to the cemetery, take U. S. Highway 43 to the northwest edge of Lake Tuscaloosa. Turn right onto Bull Slough Road, drive approximately a mile, turn right onto Old Byler Road keep straight until you see the lake and a gate in front of you (do not go through the gate). Instead, go through the gate on your right; once inside the entrance, the cemetery will be on your left. The Old Byler Road was once a toll road that crossed the land that Lake Tuscaloosa swallowed. The first Tuscaloosa County road connected the Warrior and Tennessee Rivers and ran through the Prewitt Plantation.

The PSC Early Story

John Welch Prewitt, who is reported to have owned slave ships that docked in Mobile and Tuscaloosa, designated a two-acre parcel of land next to the Old Byler Road for his slaves to bury their dead.
After Emancipation, many of the freed slaves took the last name of their owners -- as was the custom of the time -- and settled in the same vicinity.
Possibly the largest and most scenic existing slave cemetery in Alabama, the PSC's location has remained well known mostly within the black community since its oral history was passed down through generations.
Although the last burial in the cemetery was in 1959, the descendants continue to periodically clean up the cemetery and gather there to pay respect to their kin and roam across the sacred ground in search of familiar names among the haphazard gravestones. The markers include hand-cut river rock with crude etchings, solid slabs of arched stone, footstones, and flat rocks tented together (known as tent or comb graves) to keep out animals, etc.
NOTE: Numerous clean-up efforts were performed by the descendants and friends of the cemetery over the years. Source: Tuscaloosa News- Carolyn Maon- Posted Sep 7, 2006, at 12:01 AM

The PSC Update

The most recent extensive ground clearing was completed in August 2022.
In Fall 2022, a partnership was established between the University of Alabama (UA) Archaeological Field School and the PSCA. During the collaborative project, the field school students geolocated, recorded, and photographed more than 700 hundred gravestones which, because of the presence of footstones (and other mapped natural stones and debris), marked the burial locations of 582 individuals. Overall, the multimethod geophysical survey confirmed the presence of an additional 246 potential unmarked graves across the PSC. Together, this data indicates the presence of 828 individuals buried in the cemetery. Therefore, the geophysical surveys have verified and validated that the PSC has more than 300 - 600 burials or any other number previously published/reported.
The benefits of the partnership between the UA and the PSCA were mutual and multiple, and all elements associated with the effort can be found in the report subject: Prewitt Slave Cemetery Project: Report on Geophysical Surveys Conducted by the Fall 2022 University of Alabama Archaeological Field School, dated June 2023 (provided upon request).
The PSCA will be cleaning and repairing the headstones (within budget) that can be addressed without causing damage.
Phase II of the effort is ongoing.
Descendants, churches, schools, businesses, organizations, interested/curious community members, and visitors have frequently visited the cemetery due to its essential/outstanding history and unique artifacts.