GREENOCK CEMETERY

Article appearing in Evening Times, West Memphis, Arkansas

Wednesday, July 9, 1987

. . . Preservation . . .

Workers uncover history

Old cemetery gets facelift

By Catherine M. Chilton

Evening Times Staff Writer

The oldest graveyard in the county stayed hidden under trees and brush for years, visited mainly by snakes, chiggers and other unfriendly elements.  Recently, Greenock Cemetery was brought back to light by the efforts of four summer employees of the East Arkansas Private Industry Council, under the direction of Billie Williams.

Jessie Buchanan, Larry Thomas, Jerry Dyson and Norman Cox, armed with scythes and other instruments of destruction, spent several days cutting down small trees and hauling brush from the landmark.  The cemetery was started in the 1830's on an old Indian mound to serve the town of Greenock which was across the levee and was Crittenden County's first county seat.

As they cut and cleared away, more and more old tombstones came into view.  Many of the headstones, despite their age, are in prefect shape, with the marble as white and the letters as clear as the day they were cut.  A number of children's graves attest to the high infant mortality in the last century.  One is for "Mary E., dau. of J. G. & C. A. Sands, Born Apr. 30 1852, Died Nov. 15 1858, a little flower of love, that blossomed but to die."

C. A. Sands, according to local historian Margaret Woolfolk, was a steamboat captain who owned land in the county.  Several Sands family members, who were early settlers around Jericho, are buried in the cemetery.

Miss Woolfolk, who has a catalogue of the cemetery's stones, said one of the stones was over the remains of Alexander Ferguson, the father of William D. Ferguson, the first sheriff of Crittenden County.  Alexander Ferguson was born in Greenock, Scotland.  The sheriff's first wife and other Ferguson's are also buried there.

"I remember when I was a young girl and used to ride horses out there, I was impressed by one that had 'this man was murdered' on it," Miss Woolfolk said.  It was the tombstone of John B. Crockett, who was killed in 1870, but she never looked farther into the murder, she said.

Some of the dead have descendents still living in the county.  Emily Daniels butler of West Memphis said she knows about 10 of her Daniels kin are buried in the old graveyard.  Her brother, who had done a great deal of family research, said the family's first Crittenden ancestors were Beverly Daniels of Virginia and Charlotte Measles of North Carolina.  Both came to the county in the 1830's, he said, and were married shortly before marriages began to be recorded her.  They had eight children, some of whom are buried in Greenock Cemetery, as are the parents.  The most recent burial of a Daniels ancestor in Greenock was Mrs. Butler's great-aunt, Iola Josephine Daniels, who died in 1889 at the age of 8.

Others in the cemetery are Dr. T. B. Lyon, a doctor from Ohio who was one of the first county physicians, and Capt. R. D. Ball, who died in 1868.  Nothing is known of Capt. Ball except that someone thought he was pretty special: carved on his stone is "Mark the perfect man and behold the upright, for the end of that man is peace."

Some of the stones are not only unreadable but missing.  Like all unwatched cemeteries, Greenock has been subject to a certain amount of vandalism.  Wanda Hensley, general supervisor of the Summer Youth Employment Program, pointed out one stone which had been recently broken off at the base.  Miss Woolfolk said many stones had been carried off by farmers to hold down harrows.

The four young men who uncovered the old stones are now cleaning up the Crawfordsville cemetery for the Crittenden County Historical Society.  Almost 140 young people have been employed through the youth program this year, Mrs. Hensley said, by a wide variety of organizations which will give them experience and knowledge they seem eager to have.  The working at Greenock learned without doubt, that however deeply history is covered, it never completely disappears.

Greenock Cemetery Transcriptions

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