Joyce Harrison, left, and Covenant College African-American Studies Class professor Dr. Alicia Jackson teach Covenant College students about the historic Haslerig Farm and District Hill Cemetery of the Chickamauga area.In a quest to learn more about local African-American businesses in the early 20th Century, Covenant College’s African-American Studies Class took a field trip to the former Haslerig Farm and District Hill Cemetery in Chickamauga.
“The Haslerig milk processing plant was constructed and completed Nov. 9, 1949, along with an automated milking barn,” said Joyce Harrison, whose family owned and operated the plant and the farm which supplied it. The land occupied by both, which still houses the cemetery, has been in her family for generations.
It is said that about 700 African-Americans were buried at District Hill Cemetery, many during the days of slavery.
In 2015, ground penetrating radar found at least 122 bodies, but only 11 graves were marked.
“It has been 100 years since George W. Haslerig bought the property for $1,250,” said Harrison’s husband Tom, who helped her lead the class. “He had $700 cash and paid it off two and a half years later.”
George W. Haslerig was a slave who was freed as a teenager. He then started a church and became a farmer. He managed to save enough money to purchase 15 acres of land on Cove Road in Chickamauga in 1915. He later purchased an additional 65 acres of adjoining farmland which is now home to his great-grandchildren.
The Haslerig family provided the land for the first school for African-Americans on farmland purchased by George W. Haslerig, who in 1868 built and pastored the Napier Chapel AME Zion Church in Center Post which still stands today.
One of his three sons – Sheldon, C.D. and Archie – transitioned the farming operation into what would become another arm of the family’s legacy.
“C.D. Haslerig ran this general farm where he milked cows, raised chickens and tended a large vegetable garden,” Joyce Harrison said. “His efforts paid off and he soon found that he had quite a bit of surplus goods. He began to peddle his excess milk, eggs, butter, fruits and vegetables to other families.”
By 1949, C.D. Haslerig had established an impressive consumer base. He delivered his dairy products and vegetables door to door and his customers welcomed his fresh produce with open arms, she said.
” The Haslerig Dairy Farm was said to be the only African-American owned dairy of its type in the entire South,” said Harrison.
The business grew from one truck to five delivery trucks and a transport truck and delivered milk to all the African-American schools in the area as well as other clients in the area, she said.
In 1957, C.D. Haslerig passed away and Charles and Willie – Joyce Harrison’s father – primarily carried on the operation of the family business. Due to the rising costs of running a business, the Haslerig Dairy Farm closed in the mid-1960s, as did Haslerig Dairy Bar, a diner on Third Street which the family owned and operated.
Carrying on the family’s farming tradition, albeit on a smaller scale, Charles and Willie Haslerig raised cattle, fishing worms and gardened. Willie Haslerig was named the Walker County Citizen of the Year in 2003. He passed away in 2013.