On Veterans Day, Palmetto Bluff's Archaeologists Walk Residents to a Cemetery That's Still in Use

Of the 12 cemeteries on Palmetto Bluff, Rephraim is the one where the record is still being written. It sits on Rephraim Cemetery Road, off Palmetto Bluff Road. It holds more than 300 graves. Two belong to Union soldiers who had been enslaved on the plantation where they are now buried, and the cemetery is still active today.

On Wednesday, Nov. 11, Veterans Day, the Palmetto Bluff Conservancy's archaeologists will lead a morning walk there to honor those soldiers. The walk is a good way into how the property's past is actually looked after. Most of it isn't sealed off behind plaques. It is mapped, repaired, researched and in one place still used, and much of it sits along roads and lawns residents pass every week.

The details for Nov. 11

The Conservancy's listing gives the essentials:

The walk is on the Palmetto Bluff events calendar under November 2026, next to the rest of the Conservancy's fall programs. The listing's wording is plain: archaeologists will lead a visit "to honor the Union soldiers who are buried on the plantation where they were once enslaved."

A burial ground older than the community, and still open

Rephraim started as a burial ground for people enslaved on Rephaim Plantation. Confederate general Thomas F. Drayton once owned that plantation. After the Civil War, freed people and their descendants kept using the cemetery. This history comes from a Yale Day of Service listing, which invited volunteers to a spring 2024 cleanup with Palmetto Bluff's archaeologists and local community members. The Heritage Library also connects Drayton to "Rephaim Plantation, Bluffton." The plantation's name is spelled without the second "r," and the cemetery and its road carry the spelling Rephraim.

The same listing describes the two Union soldiers as formerly enslaved men who enlisted and fought for freedom. Their names and service are what the archaeologists hold, and the Veterans Day walk is where that story is told in person.

The cleanup itself shows what keeping an active cemetery involves. Volunteers were asked to trim, rake, reset headstones and haul away debris, and to bring brooms, blowers, trimmers and mowers. In a working cemetery, that kind of upkeep never really finishes.

Twelve cemeteries, and one of them still active

Rephraim belongs to a larger system. In a March 2024 story titled "Resurrecting Stones," Conservancy archaeologist Katie Epps wrote that Palmetto Bluff has 12 cemeteries holding hundreds of people and nine dogs. She sorts them like this:

1. Five began as burial grounds for enslaved people and were later used by freedmen and their descendants into the early twentieth century. One of the five is still active.
2. Six were for plantation owners and their families.
3. One is for the Wilson family's dogs. Richard T. Wilson Jr. gave Palmetto Bluff its name.

Restoration started in 2016, partly to honor everyone buried on the property, whether their grave is marked or not. In March 2024 the count was six cemeteries finished, two in progress and four scheduled for the coming years. A March 2026 Conservancy story says Epps still maintains and restores all 12, and that none of them has been excavated.

The team's work is conservation and research. They map every cemetery and list each headstone, each footstone and each inscription. Some cemeteries are on private land. For those, Conservancy Land and Wildlife Manager Brian Byrne keeps right-of-way access open, clears dense or unsafe vegetation, puts up cast-iron fencing around the boundary, and keeps up the monthly landscaping.

The stones by the Canoe Club pool and the River House

Several of these sites are close to places residents go all the time.

• Screven-Hipp Cemetery, part of the old Montpelier Plantation, is next to the Canoe Club pool. It has two complete monuments and at least seven burials inside the remains of a tabby wall, and the archaeologists think there are at least ten. Until 2016, the monument to John and Elizabeth Screven and their four infant children was held together with wire. A restorer repaired it, set it on a new foundation, and left a time capsule inside with records of the methods and materials, so future restorers know what was done.
• Octagon Cemetery is in the cottage area and holds at least ten people. In January 2021, cemetery conservationist Frank Genello of American Building Restoration Company helped repair the box tomb of Dr. Samuel Fairchild, owner of Octagon Plantation, who was buried in 1826. The team also built an unmortared brick foundation for a headstone that had been sitting flush with the ground and was at risk of damage from landscaping.
• The Wilson family dog cemetery is in front of the River House on the May River. It has stones for Pixie, Winchester, Bess, Nip, Sam, Lady, Leo, Luke and Tommy. Tommy's is the only marble one. He was a thirteen-year-old fox terrier and had been Marion Wilson's companion before she married Richard T. Wilson.

Each repair was designed so the next person could undo or continue it. The brick foundation at Octagon was built without mortar so it can be taken apart easily, and the time capsule at Screven-Hipp records exactly what was done. The archaeologists are planning for people who will do this work after them.

Where descendants are still finding family

The clearest sign that this history is still open comes from Landings Cemetery, off Old Moreland Road. Its headstones and monuments commemorate seven people: three formerly enslaved and four born after slavery. Low depressions in the ground mark other burials that never had permanent markers.

In 2022, Rollen Chalmers came to Palmetto Bluff to talk about rice and his new business, Rollen's RAW Grains. He grew up in Hardeeville, and during the visit he found his great-grandmother Maria Chalmers's headstone at Landings. He described the moment in the Palmetto Bluff story:

"When I visited the cemetery with Mary, Katie, and their team and saw the headstone of my great-grandmother, I was in disbelief! I've lived in Hardeeville all my life and did not know my great-grandparents were buried in Palmetto Bluff."

Further research by Dr. Mary Socci's team found that his great-grandfather, William Chalmers, leased land at Palmetto Bluff and grew and sold rice. The Conservancy hired Socci in 2004 to oversee its archaeological work, and Epps continues it. The team also plans to use magnetometry, a noninvasive method that picks up differences in the soil's magnetic properties, to locate unmarked graves. Every unmarked grave it finds adds a name or a place to a record that is still growing.

The rest of November on the Conservancy calendar

The Veterans Day walk is one of several November programs. Most require reservations through [email protected]:

• Thursday, Nov. 5: Archaeologists lead a walk among the Wilson Village cemeteries. Reservations required, along with closed-toed shoes and long pants.
• Monday, Nov. 9: Meandering Naturalist, a casual walk through River Road Preserve with Conservancy staff. Walk-ins welcome.
• Friday, Nov. 13: Explore PBC: Road to Anson, a drive down Whitehouse Road that stops at research and land-management sites and ends with a view of the New River.
• Wednesday, Nov. 18: A brown bag lunch on white-tailed deer with Science & Education Manager Aaron Palmieri.
• Nov. 20 and 23: A Conservancy pop-up shop in the Conservancy Classroom. It sells Dr. Socci's "A Guide to the History of Palmetto Bluff," a good companion to the cemetery walks.
• Friday, Nov. 27: The Moreland Southern Supper & Oyster Roast at Moreland Landing, 5 to 7:30 p.m. It is open to resort guests and the local community, with reservations required. More roasts are set for Dec. 24 and Dec. 30.

The Ussery Group's Palmetto Bluff team has spent more than a decade on this property, much of it inside the developer's real estate office, and we've seen how much of its character comes from the people who look after its past. If you'd like to talk about the Bluff, its history or your place in it, the Ussery Group is glad to arrange a quiet conversation. Request a Confidential Consultation.