Click image to enlarge. Slave cemeteries are significant, yet largely forgotten, historic resources in Alabama. Many cemetery locations are unknown, and those that have been identified are often abandoned, neglected, and in peril. While the location of the Old Prewitt Slave Cemetery near Northport has been known for generations, it is still endangered by nature, logging, isolation, and development pressures (the cemetery is located near prime lakefront property). During the 1820s plantation owner and slave trader John Welch Prewitt established the two-acre burial ground on his six-thousand-acre estate. Possibly the largest slave cemetery in Alabama, the Prewitt site became
the burial location for three hundred to five hundred slaves, along with family members of post-emancipation generations. Flat rocks and solid slabs of arched stone, and crudely etched, hand-cut, river-rock markers, are scattered throughout the cemetery, along with numerous unmarked graves. Prewitt family descendants, both black and white, are determined to keep up the cemetery and deal with the forces of man and nature that have damaged many of the markers.
the burial location for three hundred to five hundred slaves, along with family members of post-emancipation generations. Flat rocks and solid slabs of arched stone, and crudely etched, hand-cut, river-rock markers, are scattered throughout the cemetery, along with numerous unmarked graves. Prewitt family descendants, both black and white, are determined to keep up the cemetery and deal with the forces of man and nature that have damaged many of the markers.
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