Cemeteries and Memorials

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Entry Category: Cemeteries and Memorials

Fort Smith Confederate Monument

The Fort Smith Confederate Monument is a sculpture erected in 1903 at the Sebastian County Courthouse in Fort Smith (Sebastian County) by the Varina Jefferson Davis Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) to commemorate local men who served in the Confederate army during the Civil War and to honor the Confederates buried in Fort Smith National Cemetery. Sebastian County supplied troops for both sides during the Civil War. In the initial months of the war, four infantry companies, a cavalry company, and an artillery battery joined the Arkansas State Troops, and at least five infantry companies and two companies of independent scouts were later raised for Confederate service. Sebastian County residents also enlisted in other Confederate units. U.S. troops …

Fort Smith National Cemetery

The Fort Smith National Cemetery is the oldest original cemetery of the state’s three national cemeteries. The other two are in Fayetteville (Washington County) and Little Rock (Pulaski County). At the end of fiscal year 2005, there were 13,127 interments. The first recorded burial was that of surgeon Thomas Russell. He was a War of 1812 veteran who was with the original company of riflemen who landed on December 25, 1817, at Fort Smith (Sebastian County). He died there on August 24, 1819. The cemetery originally served as the post cemetery for the first Fort Smith. While the first recorded burial took place in 1819, by 1823, roughly twenty-five percent of the men at Fort Smith had died. This was …

Fowler Cemetery

The Fowler Cemetery is located approximately two miles east of Damascus, along the southeastern border of Van Buren County. The property is just over an acre and is representative of small, rural family cemeteries found throughout Arkansas. There are eighty-nine marked burials on the grounds. While the cemetery mostly contains members of the Fowler family, there are also individuals from other local families who were related to the Fowlers by marriage. It was listed on the Arkansas Register of Historic Places on August 5, 2020. The Fowlers were one of the many families attracted to the Damascus area in the late nineteenth century, during the cotton farming boom. The family initially settled in the Muddy Bayou area, along the White …

Frenchman’s Mountain Methodist Episcopal Church and Cemetery

aka: Cato United Methodist Church and Cemetery
Frenchman’s Mountain Methodist Episcopal Church, South, located at 13915 Frenchman Mountain Road in the Cato community on the Pulaski–Faulkner County line, is an 1880 wood-frame building altered to its current appearance in 1945. The church and its associated cemetery were listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 22, 1976. The Frenchman Mountain Methodist Episcopal Church, South, was organized in 1872, with the Reverend R. L. Kirkman ministering to the congregation’s needs, in addition to those of another dozen churches. A log structure was erected in the winter of 1872–1873 to serve as a church, with Kirkman preaching in it for the first time that spring. The Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad company donated the land on …

General Robert E. Lee Monument

The General Robert E. Lee Monument in Marianna (Lee County) is a commemorative sculpture erected in 1910 by the D. C. Govan Chapter of the United Daughters of the Confederacy to remember local men who had served in the Confederate army during the Civil War and to honor the man for whom Lee County was named. The Arkansas General Assembly created Lee County in April 1873 from parts of Phillips, Monroe, St. Francis, and Crittenden counties at the behest of William Furbush, an African-American Republican legislator representing part of Phillips County. It is likely that he chose to name the county after the Confederate leader of the Army of Northern Virginia to gain favor with the politically powerful Democrats in …

Grand Army of the Republic Monument (Gentry)

The Gentry Grand Army of the Republic Memorial is located in the northeast section of Gentry Cemetery in Gentry (Benton County) and was erected in 1918 by the Charles Harker Post of the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR). Along with monuments in Judsonia (White County) and Siloam Springs (Benton County), it is one of only three known GAR memorials in Arkansas. The Grand Army of the Republic was a national organization of Union Civil War veterans initially formed to help the widows and orphans of fallen Union servicemen and to support the Republican Party. It later focused on promoting patriotic activities and decorating the graves of the war dead. The first GAR camp was established in Decatur, Illinois, in …

Green Cemetery (Ouachita County)

The Green Cemetery, located about two miles northwest of Stephens (Ouachita County), is a family cemetery holding eighteen known graves, with the earliest dating to 1853. Holding the remains of members of one of the early prominent families in the southern part of the state, the cemetery was added to the National Register of Historic Places on May 5, 2017. The Green family, led by Simon and Esther Green, moved to Ouachita County around 1845 and settled near the community of Seminary (Ouachita County). Located about eighteen miles southwest of the county seat at Camden (Ouachita County), Seminary was a small farming village. The name of the settlement comes from an early school for female students that operated in the …

Hardy Cemetery Historic Section

The Hardy Cemetery Historic Section, which is located near the northern edge of Hardy (Sharp County), was added to the National Register of Historic Places on March 2, 2006. It was included in part due to its connection to the founders of the town and its funerary architecture. Though the area that became Hardy was settled by the 1880s, the town was not incorporated until July 12, 1894. Walter Clayton, a town founder, had donated the land for the town in 1883. He also donated the land for the cemetery, though it is not clear if this donation was made at the same time. There are a total of 322 burials in the cemetery. The oldest with a dated headstone …

Haven of Rest Cemetery

Haven of Rest Cemetery in Little Rock (Pulaski County) is the largest African American cemetery in Arkansas and consists of more than eighteen acres and over 7,000 burials. Established in the early 1900s, the cemetery is located along 12th Street in the University Park neighborhood. Burials at the cemetery include civil rights activists, medical pioneers, and civic and religious figures. This cemetery was listed by the Arkansas Cemetery Board as a historical cemetery. Daisy Bates and Scipio Jones are among the notable civil rights figures buried in the cemetery. Bates was elected president of the Arkansas State Conference of branches for the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was co-publisher of the Arkansas State Press newspaper with …

Helena Confederate Cemetery

The Helena Confederate Cemetery is located in the southwestern corner of Maple Hill Cemetery in Helena-West Helena (Phillips County). The cemetery contains the graves of Confederate soldiers, two memorials, and the grave of Major General Patrick Cleburne. The cemetery lies on Crowley’s Ridge overlooking the downtown area of the city. The cemetery was created in 1869 by the Phillips County Memorial Association when the bodies of seventy-three known and twenty-nine unnamed Confederate soldiers were moved into a one-acre portion of Maple Hill Cemetery. Most of these men died at the Battle of Helena on July 4, 1863, or from wounds shortly after. The body of Cleburne was moved to the cemetery and re-interred in 1870. A prewar resident of Helena, he …

Hollywood Cemetery—Confederate Section

aka: Hollywood Cemetery Confederate Section
The Confederate Section of Hollywood Cemetery in Hot Springs (Garland County) is a 60′ x 54′ cemetery plot surrounded by a low concrete wall with ornamental concrete posts at all four corners and an opening on the western side inscribed “Confederate Veterans.” The plot contains thirty-four marked burials, a fieldstone monument, and four concrete benches. David Stone Ryan, who served as a lieutenant in a North Carolina unit during the Civil War and later made a home in Hot Springs, purchased the Confederate Section in Hollywood Cemetery in 1900, on behalf of the Albert Pike Camp of the United Confederate Veterans (UCV), to ensure a final resting place for his fellow aging Confederates. The Albert Pike Camp was disbanded in …

Hot Springs Confederate Monument

The Hot Springs Confederate Monument is a commemorative sculpture erected in 1934 at Landmark Plaza by the Hot Springs Chapter No. 80 of the United Daughters of the Confederacy (UDC) to commemorate men who had served in the Confederate army during the Civil War. The Hot Springs Chapter of the UDC, like its sister chapters around the state, sought to commemorate Confederate soldiers and veterans, and much of its early work focused on the Confederate Section at Hollywood Cemetery, which the chapter took over from the Albert Pike Camp of United Confederate Veterans (UCV) in 1906. That project was completed in 1919 when a granite monument inscribed “Our Confederate Dead” was placed in the southern end of the plot. The effort …

Hughes Cemetery

aka: Potter's Field
aka: County Cemetery
Hughes Cemetery, located at the end of South Richards Street in Benton (Saline County), is the final resting place of former state representative, and co-founder of Benton, Green B. Hughes. The cemetery is located between Depot Creek, which is a tributary of the Saline River, and the Union Pacific tracks near the Christy Acres neighborhood in Benton. Left largely ignored by the City of Benton, the area continued to become overgrown until 2004, when the Hughes Cemetery Association was founded to help take care of cemetery. Hughes Cemetery was added to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places in 2019. Hughes Cemetery takes its name from former merchant, judge, and state representative–turned-farmer Green B. Hughes, who died on June 24, 1858. …

Jeffery Cemetery

The Jeffery Cemetery is located about seventeen miles southwest of Melbourne (Izard County), one mile off Mount Olive Road, near the unincorporated community of Mount Olive (Izard County). It is the most noteworthy remaining site associated with Izard County’s earliest permanent settlers, Jehoiada Jeffery and his family. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 5, 1999. The Jefferys, who moved to the area about 1816, are believed to be the first permanent settlers in Izard County. Jehoiada Jeffery—a surveyor, War of 1812 veteran, territorial legislator, and local politician—developed a prosperous farm that supported several of his family members. The family’s farm structures, including a two-story dog trot cabin, disappeared long ago. All that remains of …

Kirkpatrick Cemetery (Saline County)

The tiny Kirkpatrick Cemetery in Bryant (Saline County) is located on the Old Stagecoach Road (Arkansas State Highway 5). It is the burial ground for the family of Saline County pioneers Paisley Kirkpatrick and Elizabeth Allen Kirkpatrick Medlock. The oldest marked burials, those of Hannah E. Kirkpatrick Thompson and Elizabeth C. Kirkpatrick, date back to July 1860. In 2002, the cemetery was rediscovered by local resident Ben Holder during the construction of a commercial building nearby. He built a brick wall around the southern and western sides to help protect it from development. The Bryant Historical Society added an iron fence and large plaque noting its establishment in 1850. Although the original markers in Kirkpatrick Cemetery have been damaged over …