'How many people are out there?': Wadsworth woman aims to uncover details of long-dead Black Wadsworth residents buried in unmarked graves

WADSWORTH — Block 4, colored. In place of full ledger markings used to document grave locations for most Wadsworth residents buried on some of Woodlawn Cemetery's older plots, Black city dwellers of more than a century ago received the above classification when time came to find their final resting place. That ledger tag came with no proper headstone or further specifics to pinpoint a gravesite, simply pointing cemetery visitors to a barren area that, today, is filled with numerous ground depressions — although currently snow covered. Wadsworth resident Michelle Waugh has taken up the challenge of trying to fill in historical gaps never made available to countless families and descendants. She is a member of Friends of Woodlawn Cemetery, a club formed in 2019 to help preserve the site as well as educate the community on its more than 200-year history. "At our first club meetings, the subject kept coming up about these areas of the cemetery with no headstones," she said. "We had all noticed these areas and how much of it centered on Block 4. Sure enough, the research began and they're all labeled that way, as colored. It doesn't say anything else like it does for other people. That's it." "I think of the people buried being treated like that but also their families," Waugh added. "How many people are out there, many of whom have lived in Wadsworth at some point, who never got to go to a loved one's gravesite because of this? I hope there are people out there who read this and can help us find out more." Waugh has been researching the oldest available cemetery ledger records, which are held at the Wadsworth Public Library. She began at 1880 and is up to 1908 with a lot more to go, she said. "This is going to be a lengthy project but I feel it has to be done," she said. "Our fellow residents deserve this." Oldest portions of the cemetery, located just off College Street, were donated in 1817 by Owen Brown, father of abolitionist John Brown. That decision stemmed from the death of relative Frederick Brown's daughter, who is still buried at the cemetery. Frederick Brown was a Wadsworth judge and in 1816 purchased land two miles west of the first settlers on East-West Road. Construction of a log cabin there is credited by historians as the initial spark that led to development of downtown Wadsworth. Over ensuing years, the cemetery has grown to envelop 34 acres and is owned jointly by the city of Wadsworth and Wadsworth Township. More than 13,000 gravesites are now housed at Woodlawn. A forgotten Wadsworth pioneer Research by Waugh also has turned up the life story of a Black Wadsworth resident and former slave, Julia Williams, who is buried at Woodlawn without an exact known location for her gravesite. Williams lived in Wadsworth from the 1880s until her death in 1937, when she was thought to have been around 100 years old. She also was the only Medina County resident to take part in the Federal Writers' Slave Narrative Project, a 1936 effort to collect and document stories from Black Americans who'd been forced into slavery or affected by it. Born a slave in Virginia, Williams lost her father at a very young age and told federal writers she could not remember his name. She detailed working from a young age as a house maid and characterized her masters as being "better than most," while still brutally whipping runaway slaves when they were caught. It also was forbidden to learn to read, write or so much as look at a book, Williams said. Similar work for Williams continued all the way though the end of the Civil War, to the point where it legally changed from being classified as slavery to paid labor. She married her husband, Richard Williams, in 1867. The couple moved to Wadsworth roughly 10 years later as a result of the Loomis Coal Mine strike, which affected sites located just south of the city. Company managers recruited a great multitude of former slaves from Virginia and other southern states to come in as replacement workers, even transporting them by train to Doylestown. Some people who made the trip decided to leave Ohio once they found out about the labor strife, but Williams and her husband stayed, eventually building a home on Kyle Street that's still there today. She also became a charter member of Mills Street's First Baptist Church. A Slave Narratives quote of Williams' declared that, "I think the Lord he does everything right. The Lord opened my way." Waugh said that, according to ledger research, the vast majority of residents probably buried in Block 4 are former slaves from Virginia who came to Wadsworth for this exact reason. "It's probably somewhere around 90 percent of them," she said. "There's some people from Tennessee in there too but it's almost all Virginia, the ones who are put in the books as Block 4. It makes me very sad thinking about how information is left to be forgotten this way." Piecing together history Julia Williams died Nov. 27, 1937, just one year after her story was recorded. Waugh said she hopes to eventually contact Williams' descendants as well as those belonging to any one of the Black Wadsworth residents who've never received equal and proper documentation of their gravesites. "I know it's going to be a lot of work and there's a long way to go, but I'm going to keep going," she said. "These people helped establish the town we all love today. My family has been here for eight generations. Our heroes from the past who helped make all of this possible don't deserve to be treated this way. No one does." Williams had eight children, four of whom survived birth. According to available records, their names were Lemuel, Elick (Alex, Alexander), Lula and Thomas. As of the 1940s, she still had descendants living in Wadsworth. Friends of Woodlawn Cemetery is working to compile a list of people like Williams who are buried in unmarked areas of the cemetery. Waugh said research has also pointed to the Luther and Lucy "Annie" Lee family but that details there have so far not matched what's been found in Williams' case. "The club is here for (Waugh) and is backing her up," Friends of Woodlawn Cemetery President Deb Holcomb said. "There were either no headstones at these sites or, at best, improper wooden ones that there's no longer any trace of. We can do better than that. Michelle has really taken the lead on this, but we're happy to help however we can." Anyone interested in sharing information can contact Friends of Woodlawn Cemetery on Facebook or email Waugh at mwaugh0903@gmail.com. Further details of Williams' story can be found in the U.S. Library of Congress archives. Contact reporter Jonathan Delozier at (330)721-4050 or jdelozier@medina-gazette.com.