Blythewood, Cayce, Cedar Creek, St Marks Baptist Church, United Methodist Church

Due to the hard work and dedication of our family historians Brenda Kinsler and Charlie Smith, we have located multiple burial grounds where the Swiss/German and the African/American Kinslers are interred around the greater Columbia area. Two of the slave cemeteries are located on what was once land owned by Capt. John Herman Kinsler, the enslaver, and have been maintained by the new landowners Mrs. Burnside and Darrell Smith. There are stones with basic markings on them to signify where a person is buried.

Dr Terrance Weik from the University of South Carolina, Dept. of Anthropology has taken on the task of surveying the grounds, using ground penetrating radar and other tools, with the hope of identifying how many people are interred there. This site has grown to become a special place for our family as the picture above of us was taken there. Libation ceremonies have been performed there, and a plaque has been erected to mark the significance of the spot.

Dr. Weik recently had a workshop in his lab at USC where he invited the public to participate in hands-on preservation exercises and learn Heritage Identification techniques. Many of our family members were in attendance and found the workshop to be very informative.

To see the progress of the cemetery preservation project click on the UPDATE TAB. To read an article on the Kinsler cemetery and other projects click on the archaeology month tab. For information on the Cedar creek neighborhood click the Cedar Creek tab.