In 1872, according to Studer's history, "a section of the grounds was set apart for the use of colored citizens" at Greenlawn Cemetery. This was the western part of Section 27, which at that time was in the corner of the property. This obivated the need for a separate graveyard for the Black citizens and a few years later their private burial ground was cleared and sold.

In 1881³ the Trustees of the "Union Cemetery of the County of Franklin and State of Ohio" filed suit in the Franklin County Common Pleas Court against the heirs of Henry Briggs and successfully quieted the title to the plot of ground. (The decree was dated Dec. 15, 1882.) At first it appeared from this suit that the ground had somehow become the property of the Union Cemetery Association in Clinton Township, but no deed or other instrument transferring the property to that body could be found. The common pleas case was little help in solving this apparent riddle, because the original case files have all been disposed of and this case was never copied into the Complete Record.

The trustees who sold the property in 1885 were John F. Ward, Albert Baker, Willis Mitchell, Jeremiah Dickey, Charles Davis, and William H. Roney. An investigation into the origins of the Union Cemetery in Clinton Township turned up its record of incorporation in Franklin County Incorporation Record I, page 334, and dated 1879. The names of its thirteen trustees, listed in the incorporation record, were entirely different from those in the deed of sale of the "Colored" graveyard. It became obvious that there were two "Union Cemetery" associations in the county. Upon checking the 1880 census and city directory, all of the men mentioned above as trustees appear to be Black citizens of Columbus, living in the area of Fifth and Sixth, Broad, Gay, and Long streets. These men apparently represent the group of families for whom the Franklin Township land was purchased in 1849. Several of them were owners of lots in the western portion of Section 27 at Greenlawn.

On December 22, 1885, the trustees sold the land to John M. Reaver.⁴ John Reaver farmed the land for a few years and in 1892 sold it to Joseph M. Briggs. In 1895 Briggs subdivided it into "Briggs' Brown Road Subdivision," the lots on both sides of Ransburg avenue near Brown Road.

The graves and monuments in the old graveyard were moved onto privately owned lots in the western portion of Section 27 at Greenlawn, only about a thousand feet from their original resting place. The names on the tombstones and monuments in Section 27 which appear to have been moved in from the old Union Cemetery are included in the Consolidated List, along with a few removals noted in the lot book. When the WPA undertook a survey of cemeteries in the county, a tiny tract of just 0.005 acre (barely enough for ten graves!) 200 feet from Brown road was located and identified as the graveyard of the "Colored Cemetery Association."

47