It lies in a stand of trees at the edge of a former pasture that will soon sprout homes, apartments, businesses and stores. Many of the remaining markers are toppled or broken because of vandals and neglect through the years.
Members of Friendship Chapel Missionary Baptist Church knew of the cemetery and several cleared out brush and restored monuments in recent years. The church still owns the land for the forgotten cemetery where older generations of the church are buried.
But now, thanks to the efforts of the church, the Wake Forest Historical Association members and a grant from the Jandy Foundation, Jan and Andy Ammons and their daughter, a lot of the past is being uncovered.
The grant paid for a ground-penetrating radar search of the cemetery in February, a search which revealed 400 marked and unmarked graves, 277 possible graves and one possible unmarked grave where it is believed people were buried together in haste during the Spanish flu epidemic in 1918. The study done by New South Associates and Wake Forest ar Ellen Turco concluded there were at least 567 individual burials in the cemetery.
A forum about the cemetery, the GPR search and the findings will be held Sunday, May 21, from 3 to 5 p.m. in the Wake Forest Historical Museum on North Main Street. It is a free event and refreshments will be served.
