The city of Hattiesburg, Mississippi had no idea who is buried in the Scott Street Cemetery. Now the city will be able to help family members looking for the graves of loved ones, thanks to a group of five Boy Scouts.
When 16-year-old Boy Scout Michael French heard about a cemetery that had sank into the ground because of Hurricane Katrina, he thought he might have the beginnings of an Eagle Scout project. He went to his Scoutmaster and asked if he and some friends could record the graves in the Scott Street Cemetery.
When 16-year-old Boy Scout Michael French heard about a cemetery that had sank into the ground because of Hurricane Katrina, he thought he might have the beginnings of an Eagle Scout project. He went to his Scoutmaster and asked if he and some friends could record the graves in the Scott Street Cemetery.
The Scott Street Cemetery was an African-American community cemetery that opened in Hattiesburg in the 1890s. The city had no records of the burials there. Several scouts wrote the names, dates of birth and dates of death on 648 headstones in two days. They then entered the data on a computer and gave the information to the city cemetery office.
You can read more about this great project in an article by Ellen Ciurczak in the Clarion-Ledger web site at http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=20107190329
My thanks to Dede Holden for telling about this project.
