Settlers' Cemetery

Although officially closed for further burials in 1867 after the opening of Elmwood Cemetery, burials in Settlers’ Cemetery were allowed with special permission until 1884. The oldest known burial in the cemetery is that of Joel Baldwin, who died October 21, 1776, at the age of 26. Many members of the founding families of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County, including veterans of the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, are interred at Settlers’ Cemetery. Notable persons laid to rest there include Thomas Polk (Revolutionary War colonel and great-uncle of President James K. Polk), George Graham (Revolutionary War major general), and Dr. Nathaniel Alexander (North Carolina governor, 1805-1807). The northwest corner of the cemetery was set aside for the burials of enslaved persons associated with the families whose members were interred there. On April 29, 1867, after the burials of several Confederate veterans, city officials adopted an ordinance closing the cemetery for further internments, imposing a $25 fine for any violation. 

In 1906, following some forty years of neglect, the Charlotte Park and Tree Commission (including prominent members Daniel A. Tompkins and George Stephens) undertook the preservation and beautification of the cemetery with the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Auxiliary Committee for Cemetery Square. Several unique historical features of the cemetery were added, such as the iron gate and the granite gateposts on 5th Street. The gate, handmade in 1842 at the Vesuvius Furnace in Lincoln County, originally decorated two homes of Charlottean James Harvey Orr. 

By the 1950s, despite ongoing efforts by the DAR, Settlers’ Cemetery was again in need of attention, the neglect due in part to loss of knowledge as to the ownership status of the land. The cemetery got a boost under the administration of Charlotte Mayor Victor Shaw, who made its renovation a top priority of his 1949-1953 term of office. Once municipal ownership of the cemetery was re-confirmed, the city added several features, including cement walkways, electric lights, benches, and a fountain. Since then, Charlotte officials have maintained Settlers’ Cemetery as an attractive urban park as well as the final resting place for many of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County's prominent citizens, including members of the Alexander, Davidson, Graham, Polk, Orr, Berryhill, Owens, Asbury, Hoskins, and Springs families. 

 1882, Williams ended his career as an educator – which included establishing Charlotte’s first school for Black children – to enter medical school at Raleigh’s Shaw University. As one of the first three Black physicians licensed to practice medicine in North Carolina, Williams returned to Charlotte to build a prosperous surgical practice and drug company. His distinguished public service included an appointment by President William McKinley as consul to Sierra Leone (1898-1907). 

MIC retained another local Black professional, William W. Smith (1873-1924), to construct the building. Starting his career as a brick mason, Smith became a talented designer and builder whose work included the Grace A.M.E. Zion Church that once stood on the same block as the MIC building. The original plans of the building included six stores on the first floor, sixteen offices on the second, and four offices and an assembly room on the top floor, all at an estimated cost of $28,000. Upon its completion, the building attracted numerous Black professionals and businessmen whose prior offices were scattered about the city. For nearly forty years, before the Urban Renewal campaigns of the 1960s and 1970s laid waste to the Second Ward community, the building served as a center for social, business, and professional activities for Charlotte's Black citizens, including Yancey's Drug Store, the Savoy Inn restaurant, and several of Charlotte's Black Masonic lodges and social clubs. The MIC building is one of the few remaining structures from Second Ward’s Brooklyn neighborhood.