Tombstone Tuesday - C. W. Stout, Enon Cemetery, Carroll County, Mississippi

Along with his name and dates of his birth and death, the grave stone of of C. W. Stout is engraved with the words "Still Living." Mr. Stout is buried in Enon Cemetery, near Colia, in Carroll County.

Photo by Natalie Maynor

Tombstone Tuesday - Evelyn and Evander Grantham

The double grave stone pictured here marks the burial place of Evander Grantham and his wife, Evelyn, in Bluff Springs Cemetery in Carroll County, Mississippi. Evander was born in North Carolina in November 1846, one of ten sons of Thomas Grantham, a farmer, and his wife, Lydia Alice Woodberry. The family of Thomas and Lydia, born in North and South Carolina, respectively, also included two daughters, as well as Elizabeth Grantham, Evander's North Carolina-born grandmother. Although Elizabeth Grantham is buried in Bluff Springs Cemetery, Thomas and Lydia Grantham are buried in Old Plank Cemetery near Vaiden, Mississippi.

Photograph by Sally Bennett

Tombstone Tuesday - John Baldridge, Veteran of the War of 1812

John Baldridge, my paternal great-great-greatgrandfather, was born in North Carolina and died in Carroll County, Mississippi. Buried in Enon Cemetery in Carroll County, John's grave stone states that he served in McMath's Company of New York during the War of 1812.

Dr. Zachariah Blackmon, Patriarch

Visitors to the Blackmon plot at Blackmonton Cemetery enter through a heavy wrought iron gate in the brick wall that surrounds it. Buried within the walled plot are Dr. Zachariah Blackmon, his three wives, and several other family members.The cemetery is located near Blackmonton Presbyterian Church, in a rural area of Carroll County, Mississippi, known to those who live nearby as the Wiltshire community. According to a marble marker embedded in one of the brick columns that mark the entrance to the plot, the cemetery was restored in 1979 by Billy and Edith Blackmon, descendants of Dr. Blackmon.



According to this marble marker embedded in one of the brick columns that form the entrance, the area inside the brick walls was restored in 1979 by Billy and Edith Blackmon, descendants of Dr. Blackmon.

Zachariah Blackmon "Dr. Zach"

b. 1811, d 1886

An updated gravestone has apparently replaced an older one that marked the location of Dr. Blackmon's grave, likely placed there by his descendants during the cemetery's "restoration" in 1979. According to the inscription, "Dr. Zach" was not only a "Patriarch," he was also a "Rural Medicine Man - Merchant - Planter - Lay Preacher."

Buried near Dr. Zach are the gravestones of his three wives, Susan Stout Blackmon, Margaret Thompson Blackmon, and Martha R. Blackmon.

Rebecca Stout Blackmon
b. 1814, d 1851
"Beloved wife of Zachariah and Mother of Five"

Like her husband's, Rebecca Stout Blackmon's gravestone appears to be a newer replacement. According to her dates of birth and death, Dr. Blackmon's first wife lived to be 37 years old.

Margaret Thompson Blackmon

Second Wife of Dr. Zachariah Blackmon

b. 1820, d. 1860

Interestingly, Margaret's grave stone bears the same inscription as that of Dr. Blackmon's first wife, "Beloved wife of Zachariah and Mother of Five." Since Margaret Thompson Blackmon lived only 9 years after the death of Dr. Blackmon's first wife, Susan, it is possible the inscription refers to the fact that she was stepmother to the five children born during her husband's marriage to Rebecca Stout Blackmon.

The Original Grave Marker of Martha R.,

third wife of Dr. Z. Blackmon

b. Feb. 21, 1833, died July 4, 1885

Graves of 9 Blackmon family members are buried

within the brick-walled plot at Blackmonton Cemetery

at Blackmonton Presbyterian Church near Wiltshire

in Carroll County, Mississippi

The graves of several other Blackmon family members are located within the walled plot at Blackmonton Cemetery. Two of those graves belong to sons born during the marriage of Dr. Blackmon and his second wife, Margaret. Andrew John Blackmon's grave marker shows that he was born in 1856 and died when he was 22 years of age, in 1878. This means that he was only four years old when his mother died in 1860. A second son, Charley, was born in January 1859 and died when he was barely one year old, the same year that his mother also died.