Many people driving along Old Apex Road from downtown Cary to High House Road today might notice the Turner-Evans Cemetery near the Sha'arei Shalom Temple. What they might not realize is that this cemetery is one of the last remnants of the African American, Native American, and multi-racial families that once lived on, owned, and farmed over 150 acres of land in this area in the late 1800s and first half of the 1900s. Another remnant standing not far away along the railroad tracks is a house that belonged to the family of John Willis Turner Sr., a farmer of multi-racial roots who owned 56 acres in the area, including the land on which the cemetery started and still exists.
Home of John Willis Turner
John Willis Turner Sr. purchased 56 acres of land in the Old Apex Road area in 1911 from Henry B. Jordan, a white citizen and one of Cary's early residents and land owners. In 1910, Turner married Etta Evans Scott, the widow of Irvin Scott. Etta was the daughter of Charles and Matilda Marsh Evans, who had come to the Cary area from Chatham County with their families in the 1870s. Charles and Matilda, along with their son Otis Norfleet “Noffie” Evans, purchased close to 100 acres of land in 1903 - 1905 from formerly enslaved Mary Irvin and her husband Cary Irvin, who had purchased the land in 1879 from the Raleigh Cooperative Land and Building Association (RCLBA).
| The Raleigh Cooperative Land and Building Association, a lending corporation incorporated in 1869 by James H. Harris and J. Brinton Smith in the present St. Paul AME Church in Raleigh, was a reliable source of loans to families of color for purchasing land and building homes. |
Some of the land bought by the Evans family from Mary and Cary Irvin adjoined the land of Henry B. Jordan that John Willis Turner Sr. would purchase just a few years later in 1911. Together the Evans and Turner families owned and farmed a considerable amount of land in the vicinity of Old Apex and High House Roads. Descendants of the Evans family would go on to develop some of the land into the Dutchess Village neighborhood where many Cary families live today. And 1 acre of the land owned by John Willis Turner Sr. would become sacred ground where loved ones in both families would be laid to rest.
How the land became a cemetery
Sadly, Etta Evans died in 1914, likely from complications of childbirth. Her infant son, Monfleet Etta Evans, died just weeks later; as the doctor noted on the infant's death certificate, “I guess cause of death [is from the] loss of the mother.”
Etta Evans Scott Turner
Etta and her infant son became the first persons to be buried on the land belonging to John Willis Turner Sr. Three years later, two young African American sisters, Nina and Aslee Allen, victims of the flu epidemic of 1918, were the next people to be buried on the same land. Word-of-mouth stories passed down through the Turner and Evans descendants tell that the Allen family could not afford a burial for their daughters after they died 4 days apart and that resting places were offered to the family on the land where Etta and her son were buried 4 years before. Some of the stories tell that the Allen sisters were white, but a check of census records and death certificates shows that they were black or mulatto and came to the Cary area from Dutchville Township in Granville County. Some years later in 1932, their brother Connie, a victim of a fatal shooting in Apex, was also buried at the cemetery.
As the years went by, more members of the Evans family and the families they married into were buried at the cemetery, along with the Turners. The cemetery continued to be a private cemetery and in 2012, family descendants incorporated into Turner Evans Cemetery Inc. and formed a board that manages the cemtery today. It is currently an active cemetery with 92 graves, including those of some of Cary's most prominent people of color.
The stories of the people buried at the Turner-Evans Cemetery tell in particular the history of the Evans family, a free family of color with Native American and African American roots who arrived in Cary from Chatham County after the Civil War and contributed greatly to the development of the town and are still contributing today.
Land acquisition and development
Charlie Evans and Matilda Marsh, buried in the Turner-Evans Cemetery, came to Cary as teenagers with their families in the 1870s. Charlie's family had its roots in Native American ancestry and its members had always been free people of color. Charlie's father was Fielding Evans, who brought his family to the Cary area from Chatham County. Fielding was a representative from Cary at the Wake County Republican Convention in 1874. Matilda's family also likely had its roots in Native American ancestry, though because her parents Nancy and Frank Marsh did not appear in census records until 1870, it's possible they had been enslaved. Nancy and Frank purchased 6 acres of land in Cary in 1879 from J.P.H. Adams.
Charlie and Matilda married in 1877 at the home of Nancy and Frank Marsh and went on to have 12 children. Their oldest son Otis Norfleet “Noffie” Evans, also buried in the Turner-Evans Cemetery, purchased 25 acres of land in the vicinity of Old Apex Road from Mary and Cary Irvin in 1903. Charlie and Matilda purchased an additional 73 acres in the same area from Mary and Cary Irvin in 1905. In 1917, Charlie and Matilda's son Clyde, also buried in the Turner-Evans Cemetery, purchased 23 of these 73 acres from his parents. The land eventually was developed by Matilda and Charles’s great grandsons Herbert, George, and Ray Bailey, along with their parents Joe and Mamie Evans Bailey, into the Dutchess Village neighborhood where many Cary families live today, including members of the Evans family. Their company was known as Bailey Three Development Corporation, and streets in Dutchess Village are named for members of the Bailey family.
Otis Norfleet “Noffie” Evans
Matilda Marsh Evans
Clyde married Vermel Stewart, a descendant of one of the Native American founders of the Friendship community in Apex. Both Clyde and Vermel are buried in the Turner-Evans Cemetery. In 1939, Vermel purchased 100 acres in the area we know today as Evans Road from the North Carolina Joint Stock Land Bank of Durham. Joint Stock Land Banks were chartered under the authority of the Federal Farm Loan Act of 1916.
Vermel Stewart and Clyde Evans Sr.
In a tribute to her mother, Mamie Evans Bailey wrote, “It was Vermel who helped my father locate and buy the family farm of 100 acres. She had many dreams of this place before locating the actual site. She alone located the owner and made the appointment to buy the land. It was a major step for our family and the future of her children. The land has helped her children to maintain their livelihood.”
Clyde Evans Sr. began farming this land. Over time he sold acreage to his siblings, cousins, and friends. Clyde Evans Jr. said of his father, “My father was a great land lover. Daddy wanted to build a town for people not fortunate to have any land to build on.” Many of these land purchasers were sharecroppers, which meant they didn’t own the land they worked on. By selling parcels of land to these men and women, Clyde Evans Sr. accomplished his goal of helping the less fortunate to escape poverty by building their own homes on their own land.
| Five subdivisions and 15 streets in Cary are named for members of the Evans family. |
Some of the land that Clyde Evans Sr. farmed eventually became Evans Estates, Bailey Park, Bailey Grove, and Bailey Creek, developed by his grandchildren. As their children became adults, Clyde Sr. and Vermel would give each of them a piece of land on which to build their homes or get their start. At the time of Clyde Sr.'s death in 1986, there were approximately 60+ acres still owned by the Evans family. Members of the Evans/Bailey families still own and reside on land on Evans Road and in these subdivisions that are a part of this overall community today.
Education advocacy
Clyde's uncle, James Lovelace Evans (son of Otis Norfleet Evans), also buried in the Turner-Evans Cemetery, purchased 1 acre of land along State Road 1653 in 1927 from his mother in law, Maggie Harris Allen. This road would later be named Evans Road in honor of the multiple branches of the Evans family who contributed to the growth and development of Cary, especially along this road.
James Lovelace Evans
In 1944, James purchased an additional 34.5 acres once belonging to his parents in law. In 1963, James and other Evans family members sold approximately 28 of these acres to the Wake County Board of Education and in 1965 a new high school for African American students opened on this land. Originally named Clyde Evans High School, the school became West Cary High School for African American students and operated as such until it was integrated and temporarily became a 9th Grade Center in 1967 and 1968. Today it is known and functions as West Cary Middle School.
| West Cary Middle School and Kingswood Elementary School trace their roots back to people of color in Cary. Land for both schools was donated or sold to the Wake County Public School System by members of families of color and opened as schools for African American children. |
Clyde's sister, Trannie Evans married into the Ferrell family and her brother in law, Ernest Bunn Ferrell represented the African American Schools in Cary on the Advisory Board of the Wake County Board of Education in the 1960s. He and his wife Lovie Johnson Ferrell sold land to the Wake County Public School System to expand the Kingswood School, which had been built in the 1930s and owes its existence today to the African American families who lived in the North Academy Street neighborhood in the first half of the 20
th century. When the Cary Colored School on Holleman Street (south of the present day Cary Elementary School) burned down in 1935, the proposal was for children through 7
th grade to be bussed to Method in Raleigh to attend school. The African American parents understandably objected to the plan, boycotted the plan, and families from the neighborhood organized and formed a Committee for a New Elementary School in the Colored Community, which was built on land donated by African American family members Goelet Arrington and his sister Emily Arrington Jones. Trannie Evans and Ernest Bunn Ferrell and his wife Lovie Johnson Ferrell are buried in the Turner-Evans Cemetery.
Commitment to worship and Christian community in action
Jeannette Reaves Evans, wife of James Lovelace Evans's son Herbert, was a founding member and long-time volunteer with Christian Community in Action (CCA), a consortium of volunteers from different churches in Cary that became Dorcas Ministries. Jeannette managed the Dorcas Shop thrift store as a volunteer for its first 20 years. Dorcas Ministries is a strong non-profit organization today, still growing and helping many families in need. Jeannette also petitioned the state in the 1960s to pave State Road 1653; the once dirt road became Evans Road. Jeannette's parents, Connie and Lillian Reaves, served on the Committee for a New Elementary School in the Colored Community in the 1930s and helped establish the school we know today as Kingswood Elementary School. Jeannette Reaves Evans is buried in the Turner-Evans Cemetery.
The Dorcas Shop in its first location on West Chatham Street
Jeannette Reaves Evans
Many members of the Evans Family have belonged to Cary First Christian Church, one of the earliest congregations formed in Cary. They began meeting in the 1860s under a brush harbor on West Cornwall Road and then in a small wooden church on Holleman Street, and their history continued on Evans Road. Clyde Evans Sr. donated land on Evans Road to the church in the 1960s after they outgrew their church on Holleman Street. Members of this historic church built a new sanctuary and fellowship hall on this land and worship there today. Many members of the church and other people of color are buried in the Cary First Christian Church's cemetery, which still exists on West Cornwall Road where their congregation first began meeting.
Cary First Christian Church on Evans Road
Cary First Christian Church Cemetery on West Cornwall Road
Cemeteries reflect the collective stories of the people who lived their lives in the community where they are laid to rest. Both the Turner-Evans Cemetery and the Cary First Christian Church Cemetery hold the resting places of families of color who are part of Cary's history and whose contributions helped Cary grow into the town we know today.
