This burial ground no longer exists, the remains having been reinterred at West Lawn Cemetery.
In 1849, Peter Range conveyed title to the “Common School Commitioners (sic) of District 57 and to their successors” a parcel of land for express use for “building a school house which is also designed for a meeting house………” (Ref: Washington County Deed Book 40, Page 547-8).
This parcel was located on the eastern side of Buffalo Street in Johnson City, at the near top of the hill. (This is around street number 1301/1303 today).
It is not known exactly when burials began taking place adjacent to the meeting house, but a burial ground was well established by the latter 1800’s. This burial ground was known as Roan Hill Cemetery and served the African-American community for many years.
During the early 1920’s, the Roan Hill area experienced a bit of development. The property surrounding this burial ground was owned by Dr. James Preas. During the year of 1923, in order to facilitate said development, a property exchange, a lawsuit, several deed swaps, and meetings occurred. The end result was essentially that the graves would be moved to West Lawn, at Dr Preas’ expense, and West Lawn would expand by getting some additional land. The details are more than can be listed here, and in fact, may not all be actually known.
It is sincerely hoped that all grave transfers were completed in a respectful and dignified manner, however, no records exist of the names of those moved, nor the number of graves moved. Three death certificates have been found that call out Roan Hill as the receiving cemetery. No markers for those three have been found at West Lawn. There are a couple dozen markers found at West Lawn where death dates pre-date the land acquisition there. It is possible that those were included in this move.
For now, that is what is known.
The three death certificates found are:
Nancy Faw (b circa 1857 – d 3/11/1918)
Maggie Harris (b circa 1843 – d 12/19/1920)
Chris Hawkins (b 10/18/1917 – d 10/24/1917)