Attala County Blog Has New Location.....

Effective today, posts about Attala County cemeteries, previously published on this blog, can be read at Cemeteries of Dancing Rabbit Creek. Previous posts from the Holmes County and Madison County blogs can also be read at the new location.

At Cemeteries of Dancing Rabbit Creek, I plan to write about the counties formed after The Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was signed with The Choctaw Nation in 1832, with a focus on posting photos of cemeteries and writing stories about the individuals buried in them. My hope is that readers will submit photos of their ancestors buried in these old cemeteries and provide information about those individuals that may not be available elsewhere.

Metal Funeral Home Markers

Mrs. Linda A. Patterson, who died on November 9, 2002, is buried in Carr Cemetery, near Ethel, Mississippi. Born on December 26, 1953, Patterson, at 48 years old, was still young when she died. I do not know the reason for her death. Her grave site is marked by a simple aluminum "funeral home" marker that shows her name, date of birth, age, and date of death. It also shows that Myrick's Funeral Homes, in Kosciusko and Carthage, MS, handled the arrangements for her burial. This type of marker is shaped like a stake at the bottom and is planted in the ground to mark a grave site where no gravestone yet exists.

The top part of funeral home markers contain windows made of clear, hard plastic, intended to be weatherproof in an effort to protect the information contained in it. The "window" of older funeral home markers was often made of flexible clear plastic. These markers almost always show the name of the funeral home, a bit of information that can sometimes yield more vital information to a family researcher who makes a contact there. Mrs. Patterson's funeral home marker still appears to be in good condition, although it has been in the ground at her grave site since 2002. Many markers, similar to this one, although not all in good condition, can still be seen in the rural cemeteries in Attala County. Some of the markers have been in place since the Depression, when the cost of a tombstone was likely prohibitive to many. During the past several decades, however, descendants of a few of these individuals buried in graves marked with funeral home markers have honored their ancestors by replacing the markers with conventional grave stones.

Tombstone Tuesday - David Sanders, KY Rifles

The gravestone here marks the grave of David Sanders, a Confederate soldier, who served in the Kentucky Rifles. Sanders is one of several Confederate soldiers buried in Isaacs Cemetery, near McVille in Attala County, but he is one of only a few who did not serve in a Mississippi unit. His date of death does not appear on the stone.

The Draped Tombstone of George Harman

George Harman, b. May 1793 in

Lexington Co., SC; d. Apr. 15, 1878

Buried in Harmonia Cemetery,

Sallis, Mississippi

The gravestone of George Harman in Harmonia Cemetery near Sallis, Mississippi, is one of the first gravestones with a drape of this type that I have encountered. Although my initial thought was the drape was a symbol of mourning, I decided to search for a more professional opinion. The material I found actually validated my first thought, and the research provided a comprehensive source of meanings for tombstone symbols that will be useful in the future.

But simply viewing a tombstone and analyzing its symbols is not enough for this Graveyard Rabbit, so I soon began a search for more information about George Harman. First, I searched the U. S. Census of 1850, where I found that Mr. Harmon was likely a widower and the head of a household where he lived with four minor children, Edwin P., age 15, Walter A., age 14, James J., age 13, and Susanna C. Harman, age 8. Mary A. Howard, age 14 with no relationship shown, also resided in the Harman household. The family resided in Township 14, Range 5 East, Attala County.

According to the U. S. census of 1860, the family lived in Attalaville where George, now 66 years old, still headed a household that included four children. Mary Howard was absent from the household, and another individual, identified as Kate S. Harman, 17, possibly the young wife of Walter A., age 21, was included.

By the time the U. S. Census of 1870 was recorded, George's surname was shown as "Harmon," the common modern-day spelling of the name, and he was then 76 years old. Harmon no longer headed up his own household, but he lived, instead, with his son, Walter Harmon, age 31, and Walter's wife, C. S. Harmon, age 27.

George Harman's grave is one of several in Harmonia Cemetery where Harman family members who migrated from Lexington County, South Carolina are buried. An examination of other Harman family tombstones shows that George's deceased wife must have been named Barbara, as Walter A. Harman's tombstone shoes he was the son of George and Barbara Harman.

Confederate Graves at Isaacs Cemetery

Some cemeteries have tall pillars and ornate gates and sculptures that grace the entrance to the final resting place of those buried there. But the location of Isaacs Cemetery is marked by a simple, homemade sign, with stencil-painted letters that spell out the name. Like so many other cemeteries that began as family cemeteries, Isaacs Cemetery contains the burial places of some of the county's earliest residents, along with those of residents and their families who have died in recent years. This Attala County cemetery is located at McVille, south of Kosciusko, between Highway 43 and the Natchez Trace Parkway, about halfway to Thomastown. In the very early 1800's, this area was still part of the Choctaw Nation. Graves of several Confederate soldiers are located in the cemetery, and markers for four of those graves are pictured below. You will note that the emblem known as the Southern cross appears on each gravestone.

James W. Cabaniss

Co. "A" 15 Miss Inf

C. S. A.

Alonzo Lewis, Confederate Soldier

John Fields

Co. "K"

10 Ala Inf.

C. S. A.

Elkanah Sanders

Co. "F"

18 Miss Inf.

C. S. A.

Graveyard Rabbit of Attala County Featured in "Meet a Rabbit" Article Today

Thank you for reading my blog, and if you are interested to know more about this "graveyard rabbit," check out today's article posted on The Association of Graveyard Rabbits website.

A Cenotaph in Brister Cemetery

Right: View of the cemetery where old and new stones mark the graves of Attala County residents.

Below: Entrance to Brister Cemetery


Brister Cemetery is located at Hesterville and is believed to have been established in the mid-1840's, when Edmund Brister's sister, Matilda Holland Brister, died and was buried on land that he owned. Although the cemetery began as a family cemetery, it later became a place for members of the public to bury their loved ones. Located in Brister Cemetery is a "cenotaph" erected as a memorial to Morgan Guest/Guess, who served in the War of 1812 in Tennessee. According to the memorial pictured here, Morgan Guest was born in North Carolina on August 22, 1773, the son of Captain Moses Guest, a North Carolinian who served as a Captain in the Revolutionary War. The younger Guest died in Mississippi on February 8, 1853.





Since this is the first cenotaph this graveyard rabbit has stumbled upon, I decided to look up the word "cenotaph." According to Wikipedia, a cenotaph is "a tomb or a monument erected in honor of a person or group of persons whose remains are elsewhere." The word comes from a Greek word which means "empty tomb." A common example of a cenotaph is a monument or a memorial that is erected and dedicated to a group of individuals for a particular deed or service.