This housing complex on Quarry Street in Bristol, Virginia was built in the 1940s over what used to be the Flat Hollow Cemetery. It was a pauper’s cemetery where poor and undesirable members of the community, such as people who were deemed “morally corrupt,” people who were lynched, people of a different race, were buried. Most of the graves were unmarked, and when the bodies were moved to the end of Piedmont Avenue to what is now known as Citizen’s Cemetery, the construction crew did their best to locate all the bodies. It seems they left at least one behind, though.
Pocahontas Hale was learned in the ways of Cherokee spirituality, and her grandmother, a Cherokee Indian taught her well. People would come from all around to get her tonics to cure ailments, and it was rumored that even doctors used her potions after they relabeled them. She was also an accomplished “water witch,” employed by many men to find springs so they could dig wells. She also had another job, and that was being the madam of the Black Shawl, a house of prostitution that stood where the Cameo Theater now stands, at 703 State Street in Bristol, Virginia. She would hum in front of a girl’s door when it was time for the client to leave, and some residents of Rice Terrace still hear that strange lullaby. 1
