Carnton

Carnton. A Final Place of Rest. In this part of the McGavock family cemetery are buried some of the people who were once enslaved here, former slaves, and perhaps African-Americans who labored at Carnton in the decades following the Civil War. These individuals are an integrated part of the site’s history and they, in large part, made Carnton what it became in the 19th century: a large and successful farm. While they were interred near the McGavock family section, the line of delineation between the two is obvious yet today., The only marked graves in the African American section are those of Mariah and Bolen Reddick’s twin sons, who were stillborn in 1877. Mariah Reddick had once been a McGavock slave. She lived until 1922 and is buried next to her husband at Toussaint L’Ouverture Cemetery in downtown Franklin., Formal family cemeteries such as this were far from typical. Most people in the 18th and 19th centuries, whatever their race or background, were buried in crude graves with wooden markers and thus were lost to time., Today this cemetery is a place of rest, but it is also a place for the living to remember. While those buried here are largely unknown, the story of their lives, their hardships, their perseverance, and their legacy is forever part of the story of Carnton. Some of those buried here may have finally witnessed the day when freedom came, although equality remained a distant dream.