Did you know there’s a Cemetery in one of Durham's Parks?

By Katrina Wood, Program Assistant Durham Parks and Recreation’s Leigh Farm Park, located at 370 Leigh Farm Road, represents lives of the Leigh family as well as the sixteen individuals enslaved by the Leighs. Taken together, their history in the park spans from the 1830s on up to the 1970s. While visitors can learn about them on a park tour, they can also discover more by visiting the Leigh Cemetery. The family cemetery serves as a final resting place for patriarch Richard Stanford Leigh, his first wife Nancy Ann Carlton Leigh, and Stanford’s second wife Leathy, as well as several additional family members. The Leigh Cemetery can be reached by a trail leading from the old Ram’s Gate Road that runs in front of the Visitor’s Center, at the park kiosk. There are 25 marked headstones, yet only 15 are readable. The last burial took place in 1946, and the earliest known burial is for Nancy Ann Carlton Leigh—she died giving birth to twins in July 1861. Want to get involved and learn more? He