Johns Creek residents research historical gravesite where slaves are buried

JOHNS CREEK, Ga. — Many people across our area honored the Juneteenth holiday on Monday.

The date June 19, 1865 commemorates the end of slavery in Galveston, Texas.

It happened two years after the Emancipation Proclamation was issued in 1863 to free slaves.

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“I am related to, I believe 80% of the people here,” Sabrina Aquell said.

Aquell said her family tree is deeply rooted at the Macedonia African Methodist Church Cemetery in Johns Creek.

“Most of the people buried here are related to me. The Osleys, you’ll see a lot of those headstones,” she said.

The land is tucked away in the forest off State Bridge Road.

Aquell said her grandfather Sam Jones is buried here, but after that, the history is lost.

“We can’t find Sam Jones’s mother,” she said.

But she knows her family is here.

“As this was a part of a plantation, they were burying slaves up here long before the fence was here and the houses were there,” Kirk Canaday with Descendants of Macedonia Cemetery said.

Canaday is a local historian and has been researching the cemetery and its history for years.

Canaday said George Morgan Waters owned the plantation.

He showed Channel 2′s Larry Spruill the map of the area.

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It showed the burial sites they have found thus far, but he believes there are more

“One of those problems here is when you’re looking for older graves if people are in the ground without a casket, you’re not going to see the depressions,” he said.

Canaday said the gravesite dates back to deep slavery and slavers were here before and during Juneteenth.

“People were alive. They were working in this area. (During Juneteenth) oh yeah, they were here. This plantation was here. There’s a narrative here in Johns Creek, where their narrative is, they talk about the early family settling here. One of them has the same last name as you, Spruill,” Canaday said.

Now many say during slavery the history was not officially written down but passed from generation to generation verbally.

That’s why family members who have relatives here at this cemetery say it’s important to document this history.

“So really it’s like we’re standing on historical ground?” Spruill asked. “We’re standing on sacred ground. Yes, you are,” Aquell said.

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