Gaffney, South Carolina - Graveyard in the I-85 Median

The families of this grave yard still live in this area. I have lived in this area for about 6 years an do not have the guts to cross the interstate. This a rural part of the highway and people really fly down the road. There is not much more you can see, that you can't see from the right side of the road. Please respect the families of these departed souls. [Mark, 06/28/2009]

The graves are still there, but very difficult to get to (due to the traffic.) The inscriptions on the remaining markers (verified on rootsweb.com) are:

- In Memory of L.H. Sarratt who died July 7th 1850 aged 51 years 2 months 2 days [b. May 5, 1799]
- Robin Lipscomb Son of S.S. and H.T. Ross born Feb. 16, 1864 died Oct. 5th, 18-
- June - 1818 [The date is scratched on a stone.]
- Sacred in the memory of Nancy Lipscomb born Feb 14, 1832 died Nov. 8, 1832
-Sacred Capt. R. Lipscomb born in Louisa County Virginia April 15, 1780 died March 19, 1860
- Ailie Lipscomb born Jan 20, 1805 died June 14, 1888 [Mike Anderson, 07/19/2007]

I checked out that graveyard in the median of I-85 in Gaffney, SC. There are a total of 8 marked graves. There may be others which are not marked. Of the eight marked graves, 5 are marked by tombstones, four of which are clearly legible. The death dates are from the 1850s - 1880s. One grave has a stone, but no writing. Then there are three other graves which have what appear to be stone walls built around them. Again, I can't be sure if these are the remnants of old crypts which have crumbled over the years, or maybe they were simply stone walls all the time. The area is pretty grown over, but you can still make out the perimeter of the cemetery.

Getting inside this cemetery is tricky. I don't know of any legal issues, but the fact that it is in the median of an interstate highway should tell you something. [Buddy Martin, 06/01/2007]

[RA: Buddy provided a long description of how he managed to avoid cars traveling 85 mph on the interstate and get to the cemetery. It sounded dangerous, so consider this strictly a drive-by attraction. And as you're driving by, watch carefully for Buddy-like pedestrians crossing three lanes of traffic to look at an old cemetery.]

More detail on an earlier tip -- The graveyard is at exit 95 of I-85 and it is best seen going South. The median gets very wide about 100 yards before the cemetery so watch for this if you want to see it. The weeds were higher than most of the headstones (which looked to be early 1900's vintage) so perhaps winter would be the best time to view the graves on a 'driveby'.

Traffic was pretty bad so I didn't risk running across I-85 for close-up pics and quotes from the headstones. [Greg Brown, 11/11/2000]

[RA: An update from Nate Etheridge, March 17, 2003: "Upon my visit I found it to be an overgrown, pretty much dilapidated small old cemetery -- most of the markers had deteriorated away to nearly nothing, and several crypt-type graves off to the northbound side of 1-85 had collapsed into piles of rubble. The couple of dates that we were able to make out placed the graves in the mid-19th century (approximately Civil War era) and interestingly, a couple of the stones had comparatively recent floral arrangements placed on them."]

We travel I-85 through South Carolina. After many trips, we noticed a graveyard in the median on the interstate. We found this to be pretty odd and thought you might be interested. you can see it going south from north carolina on I-85. It is before you get to Gaffney, SC. [Sue Campbell, 08/24/1997]