WILLIAMS GROVE CEMETERY

            Williams Grove Cemetery is a black cemetery north of Camden. To visit, take U.S. 641 north from Camden about 8 miles and turn west on Wright Road. From Wright Road, take the first road to the right (no street sign in 2004). This road will take you to Williams Grove Missionary Baptist Church. The cemetery access drive is the gravel drive just beyond the church, and the cemetery is at the end of the drive (about 0.3 mile).

            The cemetery has a very mixed character. At its core are five graves marked with large fieldstones. It looks like an early- to mid-nineteenth century cemetery (possible a white family cemetery). There is one very corroded temporary marker plate (no information) which looks many decades old at the south end of a row of four of the fieldstone-marked graves. The black burials here date from the 1960s and later and lie south, east, and northwest of the fieldstone-marked graves.

            David Donahue recorded Williams Grove Cemetery July 22, 2004. Jonathan K. T. Smith recorded Williams Grove Cemetery in January 1995 and revisited the cemetery in December 1997. His record of the cemetery is included in his Tombstone Inscriptions from Black Cemeteries in Benton County, Tennessee. This is referred to as Smith in notes below.

Clay, Eugene Leroy, 1929-1998, temporary marker, Stockdale-Malin, 3 feet south of the marker for George W. Tharpe

Coleman, Opal Mae [see Tharpe, Opal Mae]

Jamison, Nicholas Rashawn Larice, May 7, 1998-Nov. 21, 1999

Jennings, Wilma D. Tharpe, Sept. 29, 1936-Feb. 22, 2000, "Mother"

Kelley, Aaron, 1935-1994, temporary marker, Stockdale-Malin Funeral Home, 7 feet south of marker for Nora L. Kelley

Kelley, Nora L., 1894-1972, "Mother"; also temporary marker with dates 1896-June 29, 1972

Laws, Twyla A., 1978-1978, "Erected by grandmother"

McCauley, Voris, June 14, 1905-____
McCauley, Gladys M., May 9, 1913-Apr. 5, 1981

Tharpe, Fred L., 1945-1966

Tharpe, George W., Feb. 22, 1923-Aug. 7, 1985

Tharpe, Gertrude F., July 27, 1916-Jan. 16, 1974, "Mother"

Tharpe, Mary L., 1930-1999 [Eastern Star symbol]
Tharpe, Odie L., 1925-1996 [Masonic symbol] [from temporary marker, Stockdale-Malin Funeral Home, read by Smith in 1998: Odie Lee Tharpe, July 16, 1925-Nov. 23, 1996]; "Married Apr. 17, 1946"

Tharpe, Noble, Sr., Dec. 25, 1908-Mar. 16, 1998

Tharpe, Opal Mae, July 15, 1946-Jan. 11, 1989, "Daughter of Robert and Bertha Coleman"

Tharpe, Wilma D. [see Jennings, Wilma D. Tharpe]

Williams, Hattie Mai, 1914-1974
Williams, Gilbert, 1912-1984

Williams, Horace M., June 4, 1910-July 10, 1989, "A loving father" "We love you — Mearlyn, Betty, Thelma, Bobby and W.C."

Williams, James, 1943-1966, temporary marker, Trinity F. H., 5 yards south of marker for Nora L. Kelley

Williams, Roger Thomas, 1922-1980, temporary marker, Stockdale-Malin Funeral Home [not found in 2004; reported by Smith; may be temporary marker plate with no information about 4 feet south of the double marker for Voris and Gladys M. McCauley

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