Bickerstaff Grave

First White Settler Buried in Lee County - 1836

Zack Sprayberry
zspr@earthlink.net
November 20, 2002

On May 11, 1996 a group of 5 people set out to see the Bickerstaff grave, the grave of the first white settler buried in Lee County. The grave is located right off an old stage road in the northeast quarter of the northwest quarter of Section 17, Township 19 North, Range 24 East, Lee County, Alabama.

Our group was made up of Newell Floyd, Judge Noel Baker, Robert McNutt, Glenn Drummond, and myself.

Newell Floyd is the most knowledgeable person I know when it comes to the stage roads and cemeteries in western Lee County. He has maps, records, and firsthand knowledge of the history of that area. Newell was our guide. Newell has studied the area since 1969.

Judge James Noel Baker was a retired judge in Lee County. Judge Baker had to walk through the woods with the help of a walker but he was determined to see the old grave. Judge Baker was very interested in the Bickerstaff grave, Fort Henderson, and other historic sites in that area. We are grateful to him for all the information he passed on to us. Judge Baker was at that time President of the Genealogical Society of East Alabama and a past president of the Lee County Historical Society. Judge Baker told us that he had studied the Bickerstaff grave and that area for 30 years and was very happy that he finally got to see it.

Glenn Drummond was the Macon County Engineer at that time and a dedicated amateur historian. He shared information with all of us.

Robert McNutt is retired from the Soil Conservation Service. He is very familiar with Lee County and all the surrounding counties. He has visited all the known cemeteries in East Alabama to record all the names and dates he found there as Cemetery Enumerator of the GSEA. He has done a lot of work cleaning up the cemeteries and recovering the locations of old cemeteries.

I am a professional land surveyor and amateur historian. All of us were members of the Lee County Historical Society and the Genealogical Society of East Alabama.

The grave was located on property owned by Mead Coated Board, Inc. Newell Floyd had gotten a key to the gate to get into the remote property which is about 3 miles south of the Roxanna community. Mr. Billy Hammock, a forester for Mead, had previously shown the gravesite to Newell Floyd. Mead also furnished us with maps and a sketch of the gravesite area. We rode as far as we could and then had to walk. On a hill we found a number of large rocks which we took to be an old home site or a church. The area had been clear-cut and the rocks were in disarray. Farther down the road we found an old home site. When we got to the grave we found several very large stacked stones marking the grave. Mr. Robert Bickerstaff was killed by Indians on May 14, 1836. He was one of the first white settlers in Lee County and his grave is the oldest known white grave in the county. We took some photographs and cleaned out around the grave.

	5-11-96 left to right: Glenn Drummond, Newall Floyd, Noel Baker, Robert McNut Photo by Zack Sprayberry
	5-22-96 Robert McNutt, Noel Baker, Newell Floyd, Glen Drummond Photo by Zack Sprayberry