Camp Nelson Foundation Members and Camp Nelson National Monument Superintendent Ernie Price check out the new wayside marker at Hall Cemetery. (Photo by Jeff McDanald)

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The Camp Nelson Foundation unveiled a new interpretive wayside marker at the Hall Cemetery on Saturday, May 17, during a public dedication ceremony.

The cemetery is based in the Hall Community. Located southwest of the Camp Nelson National Monument’s Visitor Center, off US-27 and Hall Road, the Hall Community is the former Home for Colored Refugees at Camp Nelson during the Civil War. It serves as the final resting place for US Colored Troops soldiers, their families, and their descendants. The Camp Nelson Foundation is the Friend’s group for Camp Nelson National Monument and the philanthropic partner of the park. 

The installation of this interpretive sign was a cooperative effort of the Camp Nelson Foundation, Camp Nelson National Monument, and the people of the Hall Community, according to Jeff McDanald, a longtime member of the Foundation. “I want to thank everyone who contributed their dollars to the fundraising effort and to those who showed up for workdays to contribute their sweat equity, clearing brush and beautifying the cemetery,” McDanald said. 

He added that The Camp Nelson Foundation has partnered with Camp Nelson National Monument on a number of projects, but “perhaps none more significant than this one. It was important that the Foundation took the lead on the project since the cemetery property is outside the bounds of the National Parks Service property.”

The Hall Cemetery is known as the final resting place for many United States Colored Troops as well as their refugee families, but according to McDanald, there is evidence that the cemetery was in use before the Civil War. It is also a public cemetery for anyone associated with the hall community. 

McDanald said the cemetery is “off the beaten path. The road to the cemetery resembles a private driveway and is near the entrance to the Beam Preserve. But the people of Hall are familiar with the cemetery and the families buried there. Some of them refer to it as Ariel Cemetery, the original name of the community.”

Chief of interpretation, Education, and Visitor Services at Camp Nelson National Monument said the wayside marker was a “grassroots effort,” and echoes what McDanald said in that it was an effort powered by the Foundation and the descendants who live around the area. “Hall was a post-war community. This Black community was formed by Camp Nelson Soldiers and refugees after the Civil War, so it goes back to the 1860s. I call it the living legacy of Civil War Emancipation that’s still alive today, which is really cool,” Phan said.