ALL YOU GHOSTS GET UP, THERE’S A HIGHWAY COMING! - For nearly a hundred years and more, the eternal sleep of several Laurens County residents had gone undisturbed. When highway workers began laying out Interstate Highway 16 four miles south of Dublin on the Glenwood Road, they discovered that in a grove of oak trees were the last remains of forty-three persons.
The cemetery was located a few hundred yards to the east of the overpass of the Glenwood Road in the right of way of I-16. None of the graves were marked, so no one knew exactly who was buried there.
There was some question whether or not the people were Indians or slaves. Workers reported finding a few pieces of pottery and beads. The final determination was that the people buried in the cemetery were probably slaves or descendants of slaves who had lived on a plantation in the area.
The cemetery was located on the farm of B.F. Cochran, whose family acquired the property in 1899. If indeed there were slaves buried there, they might have belonged to Henry Cooper who owned the property until 1843 or to Frederick Hightower who purchased the property from Cooper. The property passed to Hightower's son, Francis M. Hightower, after the elder Hightower's death. In 1866 it was sold to James M. Howard and George M. Howard who owned the property until the 1890's.
The removal of the bodies was a unique situation. According to Jim Gillis, State Highway Commissioner, it was the first time that a cemetery was ever condemned for a road right of way in Georgia. The Cochran family graciously offered land for a new cemetery. All of the remains of the people were placed in vaults and given a proper burial on the Cochran property at the northeast junction of the two highways. Just who the forty-three people were will probably never be known.
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