HARRIS CEMETERY, COLBERT, ALABAMA http://files.usgwarchives.net/al/colbert/cemetery/harris.txt ==================================================================== USGENWEB PROJECT NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations. Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Project Archives to store this file permanently for free access. This file is copyrighted and contributed by: Jack Munson ==================================================================== APRIL 2003 Notes on Harris Cemetery, Colbert, Alabama The cemetery is located just northwest of Cherokee, Colbert County, AL. My wife's grandmother, Lula Harris, owned this property for a short time around 1902. At that time the farm consisted of 715 acres. Lula was only about 29 years old and we first assumed that she must have inherited it from some relative. We knew it was not from her parents who both died young in North Carolina around 1881. After doing a lot of searching, we found that this Harris family had no connection with hers unless maybe back in England prior to 1600. We finally found that Lula was living in the Cherokee area because after her parents' deaths, she went to live with her aunt, Sophronia Hearne, and her husband, Thomas Alexander Sides, who had moved there from Stanly County, AL prior to 1860. All moved to Hill County, TX about 1908. At that time T. A. Sides and his wife sold about 2600 acres of land in several plots mostly south of Cherokee and four lots in Cherokee. When we first saw the cemetery, we were surprised at the elaborate markers. We had expected to see some vertical slabs with writing that was mostly eroded away. Both of these pictures show the general arrangement. They were taken in 1997. At that time the field was used as a pasture and the cattle kept it in good shape. The owner told us that he bought the farm in the 1970s and at that time the cemetery was in very bad condition. There had been an old barn located near the cemetery and it had been bulldozed down and pushed into the markers. He cleared away the debris and rebuilt the markers as best he could. There were a couple of markers that he could not find their original location and they were lying on the other markers. The last time we were in the area was 2001 and at that time he had quit running cattle on the land and had it leased out to a farmer who was growing hay. It looked like he was running a poor operation. There were several round bales of old dry hay lying in the area and the last year's hay crop looked like it had not been cut at all. We looked at the property from the Natchez Trace Parkway and it was so grown up that we could not locate the markers.