THE FOGOTTEN PEOPLE

The first known Buncombe County Home for the Poor was a large wooden structure built 1906. (This was torn down many, many years ago). It housed the aged, the affirmed and homeless. In 1947 the Old County home was relocated in the former building of the Buncombe County Boys Training School. For over 20 years it remained The County Home for Aged. When updated social reform came to Buncombe the Old County home was closed and George Laster leased the old structure from the County and it then became White Pines Rest Home. It now is the home for Buncombe County Emergancy Services directed by Jerry Vehaun.

The "Old Potters Cemetery" as the local people called it was started at this time.(1906) When the resident's, referred to in census as Inmates, died they were taken to a field on the grounds and this became the Old County Home Cemetery. Many of these graves were only 7-8 inches deep, some people were buried simply wrapped in a cloth. There were not any headstones, rocks or wooden crosses to mark any remains.

In mid 1970's the Board of Education bought the land to build Clyde A. Erwin High School. The County hired Phillip Ellen Contractors Inc. of Southern Pines, NC. to excavate the bodies and move and relocate them a short distance away.

The figured that there were about 200 or so graves, but when the work was begun the numbers were soon over that and an estimated figure ended up between 500 to 800 graves.

Some of there records were taken from REGISTER OF DEATHS IN THE CITY OF ASHEVILLE. April 1898 to August 1909. These are a collection of records taken before the law in 1913 where the United States required all deaths to be recorded in the Courthouse.

Some of these records were compiled by Old Buncombe County Genealogical Society of Asheville, NC in their book "Register of Deaths in the City of Asheville, April 1898-August 1909." The Pack Memorial Lobrary and articles frm the Citizen Times, era 1973.