Friendship Baptist Church and Cemetery was founded about 1810 in the Broad River area of North Wilkes County, Georgia. Just north of the town of Tignal, it has about 260 marked and named graves with many more not named, just marked with rocks. One even has a wooden tomb stone with no, or long gone markings.
The church became inactive somewhere about 1960's and fell into despair and was overgrown with weeds and you name it. About 1975 or 76, three families that had ancestors buried there took on the project of cleaning up the grounds and restoring the church building and cemetery. It took two or three years of these folks doing the work by themselves to clean the ground, repair the church, roof, floor, and much more. From what I have found out, Clarke Moone and Earl Bradley were the two main men working on the project. I am told that at the turn of the century, the building was leaning to one side, so a cable was run from the building to a large tree to pull it up to plumb. The cable is still there today.
A metal beam was brought in to support the room, the floors were replaced. An interesting fact, one of the workers asked what was the purpose of the hole in the floor in the rear of the church. It was so the small boys could go behind a curtin an relieve themselves. The church services were attended by the white people as well as the black slaves. The reason that I am interested is that a letter to the editor was in our ocal newspaper a few weeks ago that made unknown facts to me known. I like most everyone else just assumed that it was all ok. There are many well known families buried there, and so many tombs are left without anyone looking after them. Them are falling down and apart. I have a Norman ancestors there and want to help them. I take many Norman descendents there to show them the tomb stone of their Revolutionary War Soldier ancestors.
The foundation needs support of other descendants.
Created on ... October 27, 2001