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.

Tougaloo Memorial Gardens Cemetery

Tougaloo Memorial Gardens Cemetery is located on the campus of Tougaloo College, on County Line Road in Tougaloo, Mississippi, just west of old Highway 51. This well-kept cemetery is one of a number of African American cemeteries in Madison County, where many individuals born in the 1800s are buried. A list of individuals buried in the cemetery in Tougaloo can be found here.

Among those buried in the cemetery at Touglaoo are over a dozen members of the Moman family. This family has had a presence in the United States since at least 1850, when 79 individuals were enumerated that year on the U.S. Census. Among these individuals were a dozen male Moman family members who were born in Ireland, two born in Germany, and one whose birthplace was shown as France. Interestingly, only one individual on the U.S. Census of 1850 was born in Mississippi, and none of the 79 individuals with the name Moman actually lived in the state at that time.

Buried in the cemetery at Tougaloo are several Moman family members who were born after 1850, including Azel, born in 1890, Felix, born February 19, 1884, Preston, born in 1880, and Howard R., born October 11, 1881; other old gravestones in this cemetery that bear the name Moman show no dates at all.

According to the U. S. Census of 1850, the oldest Moman family member enumerated was Nichlous Moman, who was born in Ireland about 1790 and was living in 1850 in Albany, NY. William Moman was the only other male enumerated in 1850 whose birthdate was earlier than 1800. According to the census, William was born in Ireland about 1792 and was living with his wife, Catharine, in Penn, Jefferson County, Iowa. The Moman male living nearest to Mississippi in 1850 was John, whose birthplace was shown as Ireland. Born in 1820, John Moman was living in Baldwin County, Alabama in 1850.

Wordless Wednesday

Tombstone Tuesday - Bagwell Family

This unique double grave monument marks the burial places of John Bagwell and his wife, S.F. Turner Bagwell in Bethlehem Cemetery, near Ackerman, Mississippi, located in Choctaw County. John Bagwell was born on January 3, 1832, and he died on September 28, 1908. His wife, S.F. Turner Bagwell, was born on September 10, 1842 and died just 6 days after her 63rd birthday.

The base of this large granite monument holds two Tuscan-like columns that provide support for a canopy. Two urns occupy prominent places on the grave marker; an open urn sits on the base between the two columns, and a covered urn graces the top of the canopy.

Bethlehem Cemetery also contains dozens of graves of other early Bagwell family members who lived and died in this area of Choctaw County during the late 1800's and early 1900s.

The Black Knight of the South

Left: Cenotaph of Alexander Keith McClung, Located in Friendship Cemetery, Columbus, Lowndes County, Mississippi

A nephew of Chief Justice John Marshall, Alexander Keith McClung was allegedly born in Virginia around the turn of the 19th century. His date of birth differs, according to the source, but an approximate date appears to be somewhere between 1809 and 1811. By all accounts, McClung arrived in Mississippi about 1832. According to most sources, McClung lived a life of reckless abandon, a man with more than a few less than desirable habits that created feelings of both admiration and fear in those who knew him. Like his uncle, McClung became a lawyer, but he seemed to have more interest in dueling and writing poetry than in studying and interpreting the law. He became somewhat of a "folk hero" after his involvement in several infamous duels in Vicksburg that left eight members of the Menifee Family of Kentucky dead. McClung's reckless bravery and often strange and somewhat morbid behavior, seem to be the basis for being referred to as "The Black Knight of the South."

McClung's reputation as a duelist and as a man who was often moody and melancholy apparently did not prevent him from being popular among the ladies. One of McClung's admirers, a Mrs. Clay, who met him while visiting her uncle in Columbus, Lowndes County, Mississippi, discusses her relationship with McClung in her memoirs. Clay describes him as "...the gallantest lover that ever knelt at a lady's feet." Almost betrothed to him as a very young woman, the writer expressed her concern about his "fitful, uncertain moods" and "....periods of deepest melancholy." Mrs. Clay further explained her fear for him when he was away by telling how McClung would "...mount his horse, named 'Rob Roy,' wild and untamable as himself, and dash to the cemetery, where he would throw himself down on a convenient grave and stare like a madman into the sky for hours." Perhaps McClung's cenotaph is located in the same cemetery referred to by Mrs. Clay in her writings.

While serving in the Mexican War, McClung's fearless disposition earned him the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the 1st Mississippi Infantry. Legend has it that McClung returned from the war with two fingers missing on his left hand, the result of being hit in the hand by a stray bullet as he charged forth carrying the American flag. McClung's service in the Mexican War was apparently later rewarded by an appointment as U. S. Representative to Bolivia between 1849 and 1851.

In 1855, Alexander Keith McClung, lawyer, poet, and a veteran of deadly duels and a war, died alone in a hotel room in Jackson, Mississippi, apparently from a self-inflicted bullet. Just as he had been drawn as a young man into a cemetery during times of distress and unrest, McClung seemed to have been drawn by his own demons into death. He is buried in Vicksbrug, Mississippi, in Cedar Hill Cemetery.

The poem below was among the deceased man's belongings when he was found.

Invocation to Death

Swiftly speed o'er the wastes of time, Spirit of Death.
In manhood's morn, in youthful prime, I woo thy breath.
For the glittering hues of hope are fled Like the dolphin's light;

And dark are the clouds above my head as the starless night.

Oh, vainly the mariner signs for the rest
Of the peaceful haven,
The pilgrim saint for the shrines of the blest,
The calm of heaven;
The galley slave for the night wind's breath,
At burning noon;
But more gladly I'd spring to thy arms, O Death,
Come soon, come soon.

Colonel Alexander Keith McClung

Died March 25, 1855

Buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery

Vicksburg, Mississippi

References:

The Bench and Bar of the South and Southwest, by Henry S. Foote, p. 104-105 (St. Louis: Soule, Thomas & Wentworth,1878) (Buffalo, New York: William S. Hein & Co., 1994, reprint)

A Belle of the Fifties; Memoirs of Mrs. Clay, of Alabama, Covering Social and Political Life in Washington and the South, 1853-66, by Virginia Clay-Clopton, 1905

"Duel! Defenders of Honor or Shoot-on-sight Vigilantes?" by Ross Drake, Smithsonian Magazine, March 2004

Old Plank Cemetery, Carroll County, Mississippi

The Old Plank Cemetery is located near the Old Plank Church near Vaiden, Mississippi, in rural Carroll County. The cemetery is a large one with over four hundred graves. Buried in this cemetery are those with the surnames of Austin, Bingham, Briscoe, Ferguson, Greenlee, Herring, King, Minchew, Montague, Parker, Rosamond, Rucker, Scoggins, Scott, Stephens, Stewart, Varner, Vinson, and Weeks.

John Baldridge, War of 1812 Veteran

Several months ago, I wrote a series of posts on Attala County Memories about the Baldridge family. In those posts, I discussed this family's migration from its native Ireland to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and later into Mississippi. After John Baldridge (the immigrant) died in the late 1700's, his widow and children began their migration through the colonies, living first in Orange County, North Carolina, then in Tennessee, and later, in Mississippi. Family legend has it that a few Baldridge men married women of Native American heritage during their migrations from Pennsylvania into the Mississippi Territory. Other stories about Baldridge men say they fought side by side with Native Americans during some of the Indian wars in Tennessee, Alabama, and Mississippi. After The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was signed, some of these Mississippi families moved to Indian Territory. But before leaving the state for what later became Oklahoma, many members of this family had lived in an area that eventually became Carroll County, Mississippi. My great-great-great-grandparents, Daniel Baldridge and Harriett Atwood, were among those who stayed behind. Today, very few Baldridges remain in Mississippi, while large numbers of the descendants of those who went to Indian Territory now reside in the State of Oklahoma.

The tombstone pictured above is that of my great-great-great-great-grandfather, John Baldridge, grandson of John Baldridge, the Irish immigrant who lived in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and father of Daniel Baldridge. John Baldridge was born on February 8, 1780, in Orange County, North Carolina. He married Jane Owens, his first wife, on September 20, 1804, in what later became Jefferson County, a few years after he arrived in the Mississippi Territory. The couple became the parents of 11 children. Jane died on May 14, 1830 in Yazoo County, Mississippi. On June 1, 1836, John married again, this time to Nancy Cheek Marble, in Grenada, Mississippi. Nine children were born during John's second marriage to Nancy. My Baldridge line descends from John's marriage to Nancy.

John died on February 18, 1860 in Carroll County and is buried in Enon Methodist Church Cemetery, south of Carrollton, near Coila, in Carroll County, Mississippi. As his grave stone states, John Baldridge was a veteran of the War of 1812, having served in McMath's Company of the NY Militia. Although it seems odd at first glance that someone who lived in the Mississippi Territory would have served in the New York Militia, the reason is a logical one: the Baldridge and McMath families had been related for many years through marriages that occurred in Pennsylvia, and John Baldridge simply answered a call to service from one of these relatives.

After John Baldridge's death in 1860, Nancy Cheek Marble Baldridge outlived her husband by 52 years. She died on March 7, 1908 and is buried in Madison County, Mississippi.