Benjamin W. Boteler, Confederate Veteran

Pictured here is Benjamin W. Boteler's grave marker, located in Briar Hill Cemetery, near the community of Monterey, in Rankin County, Mississippi. The symbol on Mr. Boteler's grave marker is the Southern Cross, denoting that he was a Confederate veteran, and the inscription shows that he served in Company "A," of the 18th Mississippi Infantry. Born in 1839, Benjamin W. Boteler died in 1908.

Midway Cemetery in Calhoun County, MS

This unique grave site located in Midway Cemetery in Calhoun County leads one to believe the individual buried here was someone who enjoyed hunting with his favorite beagle dog.

Fellowship Cemetery - Cleanup and Repair of Stones

Recently, a nephew of Duncan C. Covington, performed some cleanup work in and around the Fellowship Cemetery in rural Attala County. Duncan's Covington ancestors are buried in this cemetery near my own paternal great-great-grandfather, James M. Porter. According to an email I received from Duncan over the Easter weekend, his nephew also repaired James M. Porter's grave stone (shown here today) that had been broken in half.

Special thanks go out to Duncan and his nephew for their work in maintaining Fellowship Cemetery, especially the graves of members of the Burel, Covington, and Porter families.



Repaired gravestone of James M. Porter
Photographed by Duncan C. Covington
Fellowship Cemetery - April 2009

St. Philip's Episcopal Church Cemetery, Madison County

Several weeks ago, I received an email from Mitchell Sawyer, who happened upon a post I had written in December 2008 about Kirkwood Cemetery in rural Madison County. According to Sawyer, he discovered the once hidden cemetery when he was searching for his Hemingway ancestors, who he believed to be buried there. After finding the cemetery in a neglected and overgrown state, Mr. Sawyer personally initiated a cleanup project.



Kirkwood Cemetery, Madison County
( St. Philip's Episcopal churchyard)\
Photograph by Mitchell Sawyer

In an email to me, Mr. Sawyer stated: "When I found the grave yard it was completely overgrown and hidden. I had a lot of encouragement and advice from the Ms. Dept. of Archives and History. After removing the “forest” I started some tombstone cleaning and very thankfully the Madison Co. Supervisors got in the act and erected a nice chain link fence. Unfortunately, this past summer it appears vandals toppled the Governor’s monument. The cemetery has gained the name, of course, from the McWillie plantation but the actual name is St. Philip’s Episcopal churchyard. The Episcopal church building stood to the left as you enter the cemetery; upon a small knoll."



Photographed by Mitchell Sawyer
April 17, 2007, after cleanup

As one who treasures the beauty and historical significance of our state's very old cemeteries, I want to thank Mr. Sawyer for his role in locating this cemetery, for clearing and removing the trees and brush, and for getting the Madison County Board of Supervisors involved. Through Mr. Sawyer's selfless efforts, descendants of those buried in Kirkwood Cemetery near where old St. Philip's Episcopal Church once stood, may now visit the graves of their ancestors.

Wordless Wednesday - Two Young Children

Anna and Helen Hinton

Chapel of the Cross Cemetery

Madison, Mississippi

Hillcrest Cemetery - Goodman, Mississippi

Hillcrest Cemetery in Goodman, Mississippi, located in Holmes County, holds the history of almost two generations of my father's family. Pictured here is the double grave marker of my paternal grandparents, Clark Commander Branch and Lelia Porter Branch, located in a newer section of Hillcrest Cemetery, in Goodman, Holmes County, Mississippi. As the inscriptions on the gravestone states, Clark Branch was born on August 9, 1899, and Lelia Porter Branch was born on July 17, 1904. This photograph was taken by my parents several months after my grandfather's burial and not very long after the gravestone was placed at the gravesite. As you can see, my grandmother's inscription shows only her date of birth, as she continued to live almost twelve years after her husband's death. She never remarried, and when she died on January 16, 1991, Lelia Porter Branch was buried next to her husband.

Hillcrest Cemetery is the burial place for many early residents of the area who lived in the Goodman area or "just over the Big Black River," in Attala County, where members of the Branch and Porter families had settled over 150 years ago. My grandmother's immediate family, except for one brother, are buried here in this cemetery. The graves of her parents, J. J. Porter and Margaret Susannah ("Maggy") Merriweather Porter, along with five of her brothers and sisters, Etta Porter Parker, Leonard Porter, James Porter, Newell Autry Porter, and Vertie Porter, are located nearby. Another brother, Clarence Porter, is buried in Jessamine Cemetery in Ridgeland, Mississippi, near where he had lived most of his adult life, and in the same cemetery in which my own parents have chosen to be buried.

Members of my grandfather's family interred in Hillcrest Cemetery include at least one of his four sisters, Stella Branch Young and her husband, Woodard Young, and their mother, Claudia Baldridge Branch. Edward Arthur Branch, Claudia's husband and father of her five children, died when my grandfather was 15 years old and is buried in Good Hope Cemetery near Camden, Mississippi, in Madison County. An account of Ed Branch's death, along with a photo of his Woodmen of the World gravestone, can be seen here.

George Washington Gunter, Founder and Donor of LaGrange Cemetery

The inscription on George Washington Gunter's grave stone, located in the Sherwood Community of Choctaw County, Mississippi states "founder and donor of LaGrange Cemetery." Born on January 3, 1820 in Tennessee, Mr. Gunter died on August 22, 1882.

In 1830, Allen Gunter, a resident of Covington County, was the only head of household with the surname of Gunter enumerated on the U. S. Census taken in Mississippi that year. Ten years later, eight individuals named "Gunter" were counted in the 1840 census, including "Larkin Gunter," who resided in Choctaw County. But by 1850, thirty-three individuals with this surname, according to the U. S. Census of 1850, were living in Mississippi in Amite, Attala, Desoto, Madison, Smith and Tippah counties. One of these individuals, George W. Gunter, was enumerated in Attala County.

Although I first believed this to be George Washington Gunter, whose gravestone appears above, and the subject of my research, I later found there were actually two men named George W. Gunter who lived in Mississippi during the mid-1800s. According to the census record, the man who lived in Attala County was born in South Carolina, while George Washington Gunter, buried in Choctaw County, was born in Tennessee. Ironically, the two men were almost the same age, which made research and examination of ceInsus records quite confusing.

According to the U. S. Census of 1850, taken in the Southern District of Pickens County, Alabama, G. W. Gunter, buried in Choctaw County, was 29 years old and had been born in Tennessee. He headed a household that included his Alabama-born wife, Amanda, age 27, and their four children. Also living in the household was George's mother, Sarah Gunter, age 66, born in Virginia. The children's names and ages were Mary F., 9; Claborn H., 7; Louisa J., 2, and Andrew J., 1 year old.

By 1858, the Gunter family was living in Choctaw County, Mississippi, since the gravestone of Sarah Gunter, George's mother, shows that she died in the fall of that year.



Sarah, wife of J. L. Gunter
Mother of George Washington Gunter

Two months to the day later, George lost his wife, Amanda. Sarah and Amanda are both buried in LaGrange Cemetery in Choctaw County



Since George Gunter was a widower with young children, he remarried very soon. By August of 1860, when the U. S. Census was taken in Choctaw County, his household in Township 19 included Catharine, a 23-year old female, shown on the census as "house mistress." George was shown as 39 years old, with a birth place of Tennessee. His occupation was shown as "farmer and merchant," and the value of his real estate and personal property totaled almost $7,000. According to the census, the family received mail at the Greensboro post office. It is likely that Catharine was a young widow when she married George, since their household in 1860 included a total of 8 children, whose names and ages were Wiley, 17; William, 15, Louisa, 13; Andrew J., 11; Maderia, 9; Martha, 7; Isalena, 4; and Eveline, 3 years old.

Ten years later, George was enumerated in the U. S. Census of 1870 as a 50-year old white male, living in the community of Pidgeon's Roost. His Mississippi-born wife, Catherine Gunter, as she had been shown on the 1860 census, was now shown as "Mary C. Gunter." Thirty-three years old by then, Mary Catherine Gunter had given birth to three children between 1860 and 1870. Their names and ages were shown on the census record as John L., 9, George A., 6, and Sarah E., age 2.

In 1880, George Gunter was shown on the U. S. Census in Beat 2 of Choctaw County, and his occupation was "dry goods merchant." His family had continued to grow, since Mary Catherine had given birth to four more children born between 1870 and 1880. The youngest children's names and ages were Felica E., 9, Joseph T., 7, Pearl H., 4, and Battler B., 8 months.

Just two years later, George Washington Gunter, died. I have been unable to find the final resting place of Mary Catharine Gunter. Since she still had young children when her husband died, it is possible that she married again.

Not only was George Washington Gunter the Founder and Donor of LaGrange Cemetery, if I have counted correctly, he was the father of 17 children.