Mississippi History, 1820-1835,
Warren and Hinds Counties
Abney Farm ....
Hinds County Land Records, Volume 18, p544, dated March 16, 1847: R.R. Abney & wife, Mary Ann Roberts of Jasper Co., sold to Zachariah Wordlaw NW1/4 & W2/3 of W1/2 of NE1/4 of Sec. 29 and the S1/2 of W1/2 of SW1/4 of Sec. 20, both in T6R3W except ¼ acre where the graveyard now is on said land the center of said ¼ acre to be the center of said graveyard. It contains 255 acres (more or less).
Champion Hill ....
The family sold the farm property in 1847, but what was the Abney Farm was in the middle of the Champion Hill Civil War Battlefield. Our best guess on the location of the house site, and probably the cemetery, is just down the road from the first Sid Champion House site, now a church site. This location is between today’s Champion Hill Road and the Crossroads on old Jackson Road, now the Billy Fields Road.
The Issac Roberts house, the childhood home of Mary Ann Roberts Abney, was also in the battlefield area and in fact was used for a field hospital as well as Grant’s field Headquarters.
Champion Hill aerial photos courtesy of TerraServerTeam
and USGS.
Abney Cemetery
The State of Mississippi through the Mississippi Land Trust, has bought land at Champion Hill that includes most of the old Abney Farm including land thought to be the cemetery. Their plan is to eventually re-establish the Champion Hill Civil War Battlefield and make it part of the Vicksburg National Park. This monument placed on the north slope of Champion Hill in a 2010 ceremony marks the location of the Farm and Cemetery within the proposed Battlefield site.
