Friday, September 10, 1999
Soldiers to restore old cemetery
Groups hope to find missing gravestones
BY ALLEN HOWARD
The Cincinnati Enquirer
ANDERSON TOWNSHIP — Honor and recognition for many veterans, including 849 African-Americans buried at Hillcrest Cemetery who fought in wars from the Civil War to Korea, may come this weekend.
When the 101st Platoon of the Blue Ash Civil Air Patrol and the 147th Armored Regiment of the Ohio Army National Guard complete a massive cleanup, they are planning a ceremony that will include a 21-gun salute.
The cleanup will start 9 a.m. Saturday.
“If we complete the cleanup this weekend, we will have the ceremony,” said Charles Hibbard, deputy commander of the civil air patrol unit. “If we can't finish on Sunday, we will have the ceremony when we finish.”
He said the group also has arranged to place flags on the gravestones of all veterans.
The unit has agreed to help inmates from the Hamilton County Probation Department clean up the 14-acre cemetery.
Mr. Hibbard said they will also search for missing gravestones, specifically that of Charles Smart, a World War I veteran whose gravestone is among 237 misplaced graves of African-Americans.
The cemetery, which holds 1,388 veterans, is scattered along a hillside in Anderson Township off Sutton Road. Some of the gravestones have been washed out of place and some are covered with weeds and high grass.
County records show a tangled ownership involving the original owners, Guy Lancaster, his brother Roy, and the Hillcrest Cemetery Association.
A 60-foot strip road right of way, which cuts through the cemetery, is owned by the county, but there are no graves on that land.
Nobody claims ownership. Nobody wants it.
The final disposition of ownership may rest with Donald Lancaster of Villa Hills, a nephew of the original owner, Guy Lancaster, and son of Roy Lancaster.
Donald Lancaster, 74, a retired vice president of the former Central Trust Bank, said he recalls that the cemetery was sold to a church in 1966. That is the year county records show Union Baptist Church in the West End became caretaker of the cemetery, but there is no record of a sale.
John Nolan, chairman of the church's board of trustees, said the church never owned any part of the cemetery.
Donald Lancaster said he wants to do what he can to clear deeds to the cemetery.
“I am probably the closest relative left,” he said. “I would be willing to deed it over to whoever wants it if I can legally do that. I have no interest in the cemetery.”
The history of the 73-year-old cemetery is confusing. County records show that Guy Lancaster started the cemetery in July 1926. He set aside a section for African-American soldiers who couldn't get buried in other cemeteries because of their color.
Guy Lancaster retired and went to Florida in 1960. Donald Lancaster said his uncle died in St. Petersburg, Fla., in August 1970 and was buried there.
His father, Roy Lancaster, died in October 1970 in Independence and is buried in Highland and Independence Cemeteries in Fort Mitchell.
The Hillcrest Cemetery Association Inc. was listed as defunct in August 1991 by the Ohio secretary of state's office.
“I never knew my father owned part of the cemetery,” Donald Lancaster said. “I knew he worked at the cemetery with my uncle. I am surprised that the records show that he owned part of it.”
He said his uncle never had children. His aunt, Elsie Lancaster, is also deceased.
Dan Mistler, a real estate lawyer who does work for Donald Lancaster, said he thinks Mr. Lancaster is the only person left to deed the cemetery to whoever wants it.
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