The Hickory Hill Plantation Slave Cemetery is a 1 acre cemetery set aside as a cemetery for slaves, former slaves and family of former slaves, of General John Coffee's (1772-1833) Hickory Hill Plantation, originally approx. 3 mi. north of Florence, AL but now inside the city limits on Cloverdale Road next door to Walmart Supercenter No. 2701. The cemetery is often referred to in early 20th c. documentation as the "[William] Bill Coffee Cemetery," due to the fact that General Coffee's son William Coffee (1830-1902) at one time owned the property.

This cemetery should not be confused with the (Alexander Donelson, a son of John Coffee) Coffee Servants' Cemetery on Gunwaleford Road in Lauderdale County.

The 1902 and 1904 deeds to the Coffee Hickory Hill Plantation property allow all of the land to be sold except "Exempt from this conveyance the land known as the Coffee family graveyard and graveyard for colored servants, with the right of way to and from said graveyards. Each of said graveyards containing 1 sq. acre, and the Coffee family graveyard having as the center of the graveyard the monument of John Coffee, together with the appurtenances thereto belonging . . ."

The slave cemetery is just to the west on the other side of the access road which runs between it and the red brick-walled-Coffee Family Cemetery. A historical marker erected by the Florence City Historical Board in 2018 marks the location.

The legal description of the property is: 140'S X 310'S in NE/4 of NE/4 Sec 33 TSR11W

Currently there is only one marked burial with a worn, illegible stone. Probing has revealed approx. 140 burials, all but the one noted above unmarked. The Florence City Historical Board has placed small granite markers at several of these burials and plans eventually to mark all of them. The earliest known burials (3) date to 1840 though there may be earlier 1830 burials.

From death records (primarily obituaries and death certificates), census records, family tradition, etc., we have identified, as of Dec., 2018, approx. 18 people we *believe* to be buried here, with the surnames COFFEE, JACKSON, KEMPER and THOMAS. Several Coffee house-servants are buried to the east just outside the red brick-walled family cemetery, and we know the names of two of them: this area has been probed and fenced off by the Florence, AL City Historical Board and the burials marked. This cemetery is a work in progress: hopefully we'll identify more of the burials here. Also, some names of memorials might be removed if we discover definitively that they're buried elsewhere.

If anyone has information about these or other people possibly buried here, please contact Lee Freeman at the Florence-Lauderdale Public Library (in Florence, AL ) Local History-Genealogy Dept. at 256-764-6564 Ext. # 130 or e-mail [email protected]