Harris
Cemetery
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| Harris
Cemetery | |
Harris Cemetery is located in Howell County in Missouri, in the city of Willow Springs. It is located along Business 60-63 across from what is now the Petals Plus flower and gift shop. The location is in section 29, township 27N, range 9W of Howell County.
I am greatly indebted to the late A. Claude Ferguson for sharing his extensive research into the history of Harris Cemetery before his death in 2006. Those materials are the basis for the brief summary that follows.
On December 14, 1855, Ezekiel Jones of Oregon County, Missouri, filed a claim for 40 acres of land, which would eventually become part of the city of Willow Springs, Missouri. An area near the southeast corner of this tract would become Harris Cemetery.
On September 3, 1867, James Ward Harris and his wife, Permelia Jane Davis Harris, essentially swapped their Shannon County property for the land that Ezekiel Jones had accumulated in Howell County, with each party selling their land to the other. Thus, James Ward Harris and his family became the owners of the property on which Harris Cemetery now stands.
On March 3, 1869, James Ward Harris became the first Postmaster of the new Post Office of Willow Springs. This date is widely regarded as the beginning of the city of Willow Springs, although the city plat was not filed until 1882.
The Harris family also established a burial site in the center of the Harris Cemetery. A. Claude Ferguson speculated that the area may have been used as a community burial site before the Harris family began to use it, as it appears that there are several unmarked graves, or graves marked with field stones. It is certain that members of the Harris family are among the oldest known graves in Harris Cemetery. James Ward Harris, his wife Permelia Jane Davis Harris, and several of their children are buried in the cemetery.
On February 10, 1885, James Ward Harris died without a will, and after lenghty court proceedings the land, including Harris Cemetery, became the property of his wife and heirs. On September 24, 1886, his wife and his heirs who had reach the age of majority appointed an attorney to sell their shares of the property. On October 25, 1886, the attorney, acting as guardian for the minor heirs of James Ward Harris, sold most of their shares in the property as well. In these sales, and all subsequent sales, the area of Harris Cemetery was excluded. Because of these exclusions, it appeared in 1995 (the time of A. Claude Ferguson's research) that the Harris Cemetery land was still owned by the heirs of James Ward Harris.
It seems that Harris Cemetery became a sort of "unofficial" city cemetery until the establishment of the Willow Springs City Cemetery. When Permelia Jane Davis Harris died on March 1, 1924, her obituary, which appeared in the March 6, 1924, edition of the Willow Springs Republican, stated that James Ward Harris had donated the land for the cemetery. Indeed, the death certificate for Permelia Jane Davis Harris indicated her burial was in the "Old City Cemetery".
According to the South Central Missouri Genealogy Society's volume Howell County Missouri Cemeteries 1795-1987 this cemetery is also known as the "Old Baptist Cemetery". A. Claude Ferguson also researched the history of the adjoining church site and notes that land adjacent to the Harris Cemetery was sold in 1887 for the purposed of establishing a United Baptist Church and a public burial ground. The church was indeed built on that site and remained there until it was sold in 1899, but there is no evidence that burials actually took place on that site.
The last known burial in Harris Cemetery was that of John W. German in 1974, and it is highly unlikely that any further burials will take place in this cemetery. For many years the cemetery was poorly maintained and, due the the age of the cemetery and vandalism over the years, many of the markers are in poor shape. In 2002 the City of Willow Springs assumed maintenance of this cemetery and it is now well maintained.
The South Central Missouri Genealogy Society's volume Howell County Missouri Cemeteries 1795-1987 lists one additional grave marker which I could not find in the cemetery. Their additional information is as follows:
Brakefield, George W., 1888 - ?, son of J.S. & M.C.