I am posting this article to the site. Thanks, Margie ----- Original Message ----- From: <Richardbprice@aol.com> To: <ALBARBOU-L@rootsweb.com> Sent: Sunday, July 30, 2000 2:59 PM Subject: [ALBARBOU] "Cemeteries..." transcript > The following was reported in the Eufaula Tribune, Sunday July 9, 2000. It > was written by Ann S. Smith, Tribune associate editor. Due to length of the > article, I will present it in two or three installations. > ================================================= > "Cemeteries tell of famous and forgotten" > > Some are marked by small, humble piles of field stones. Others have > simple boards of heart pine, the only decoration being a small circle design > cut into the top of the small board. Others are mere sunken places in the > ground. > They are the graves of pioneers, settlers, farmers and slaves who toiled > in the hot summer sun and endured winter in crude cabins or, later, sturdier > farm houses. > Barbour County is filled with hundreds of graves that yield no clues > about the lives of the people who were buried in family plots and early rural > church cemeteries that do bear witness to the early settlers. > Some have wrought iron fences around plots of the more well-to-do > families. They are in areas of the county that are today remote, but where > communities of several hundred people once lived. In some of the cemeteries, > later generations have placed markers. > On a hot June afternoon, local history buff Margaret Clayton Russell > stands in the midst of a section of Mt. Serene Cemetery, in a wooded area > off the Clayton Highway. The straight pine boards on some of the unmarked > graves offer mute testimony to the lives of "simple farmers" who, Russell > laments, "lived, died and are forgotten." > Descendants have fenced in and marked some of the graves at Mt. Serene, > where the markers placed in modern times on graves of pioneers John and Anna > L. Stewart tell us they were born in 1770 and 1777. But Russell says dozens > of unmarked graves are scattered throughout the nearby woods. > > Beauchamp Cemetery > ================= > Traveling on down to the old White Oak area, where a depot once stood to > accommodate rail traffic, Russell says we will have to climb up a "little > bank" to find the family burial ground of one of Barbour County's true > pioneers, Green Beauchamp. > Along the way, abandoned sharecropper houses are lonely reminders of > those who didn't live in grand plantation houses or mansions in Eufaula and > Clayton. > Beauchamp, whose Chronicles offer a glimpse into pioneer days in Barbour > County, came into the frontier about 1818, from Ft. Gaines, GA., Russell > informs her companion on the "cemetery field trip." > Suddenly she slows down on the isolated dirt road, where carelessly > discarded beer cans are the only sign of civilization. She backs up, pulling > to the side of the road. > After climbing up the embankment and walking a few yards into the woods, > she finds the small Beauchamp family cemetery, where it appears the few > marble markers have recently been disturbed. > "We need to do something about this," she comments, pointing out > gravesite of William R. Beauchamp, brother of Green Beauchamp. > "He and his wife had seven or eight children who were raised by Green > Beauchamp and his wife after their parents died." she says. > The cemetery markers document the short lives of many before the days of > modern medicine: > William R. Beauchamp, who died at age 18, and Asbury Beauchamp, who lived > only eight years. "Marie Godfrey searched for years for Green Beauchamp's > grave, but she never was sure which one it was," Russell says. But pointing > to a crude semi-circle of stones around a sunken area about the size of a > casket, she says she believes that is the final resting place of the early > pioneer who was only 17 years old when he came to the Creek country in 1818. > Russell says Green Beauchamp was probably the last person buried in the > old cemetery. In "Backtracking in Barbour County." Anne Kendrick Walker > writes that after Beauchamp's death, (1883) his wife, Caroline, who had no > children, left the settlement > =========================================================== > > Richard Price > SOS 6-3 > > > ==== ALBARBOU Mailing List ==== > Got a complaint, contact me not the list margie@majorinternet.com > >