The Featherstone Slave Cemetery is only one of two partially intact slave cemeteries remaining in Henderson County.
Clustered in a circle under an ancient white oak on Gosling Drive in the Clear Creek community were a number of fieldstones and at least two sunken graves when members of the Henderson County Historical and Genealogical Society surveyed the cemetery in 1992.
Since that time, stones were disturbed and moved.
In 2004 or 2005, volunteers and members of the community restored and cleaned the cemetery.
Property owners, neighbors, descendants of the Featherstone family and volunteers with the local Sons of Confederate Veterans spent a day working in the cemetery.
More than 20 fieldstones marking the graves of slaves were discovered during the cleanup and restoration.
“I’m thrilled people like what we’ve accomplished,” said Sissy Owen, who organized the clean up.
The cemetery, which is on the Henderson County GIS cemetery layer, dates from the early 1800s. Many of the descendants of those slaves live in Henderson County.
The cemetery is located on private property, owned by the Dean Miller Trust.
Since the restoration and clean up, the ancient white oak was cut down.