Tombstone Inscriptions in Historic Riverside Cemetery in Jackson Tennessee (Revised Edition)
by Jonathan Kennon Thompson Smith
Copyright, Jonathan K. T. Smith, 1998
HISTORIC BACKGROUND
(Pages 3-5)
RIVERSIDE CEMETERY, a historic ten-acre burial ground [1], located on the southeast corner of Riverside Drive and Sycamore Street in Jackson, Tennessee dates to 1824, the first known interment there having occurred in September 1824, that of Mary Jane Butler, the eight-year-old daughter of Dr. William Edward Butler, "Father of Jackson."[2] (The date 1830 on an entrance column to the cemetery was a former estimate of its age.)
The village that was designated-as the county seat of Madison County was laid into lots in the summer of 1822 when the place was called Alexandria; that August the state legislature renamed the new seat of justice, Jackson. The little settlement quickly grew into a town of professionals such as doctors and lawyers; businessmen such as merchants; tradesfolk such as blacksmiths and livery-stable owners and others. There was soon the need for a convenient place of burial for Jacksonians. The first cemetery for the citizens of Jackson was located in a chestnut grove on a small rise of ground along and on the northeast side of what is now Johnson Street near its junction with Airways.[3]
This cemetery was soon abandoned and in time was largely forgotten. When some businessmen later established a brickyard at this location several skeletal remains were unearthed at which time inquiry was made of the older people in town about this burial ground. Mrs. Jesse (Nancy) Russell, one of the town's earliest settlers was quoted in the Jackson WHIG and TRIBUNE in an article, "An Old Grave Yard" in its December 23, 1871 issue, "The graveyard mentioned was established about 1821, before the incorporation of the town of Jackson and some thirty or forty persons were buried there. When the town was incorporated many of the bodies were removed to the present /Riverside/ cemetery, yet several were left behind in their rude resting place with only rail pens to mark their graves." Those remains not heretofore exhumed and reburied in Riverside were so moved and buried in the latter burial ground in the winter of 1871-1872.
A more suitable location was selected as the municipal burial ground for Jackson. Samuel Shannon donated an acre "to the town corporation for a graveyard," located on the southwest edge of the town.[4] The earliest burials, from 1824 on, were sited in what is presently the southeast section of Riverside Cemetery. Likely the re-interments from the old Johnson Street graveyard were made in this section, including the remains of Colonel John H. Gibson, local hero of the War of 1812 and Mrs. Thomas Shannon whose remains were identified "by a peculiar comb in her hair."[5] If Colonel Samuel Taylor, the town's first postmaster, who died November 6, 1825, was not buried initially in the new cemetery his remains too were removed later and interred in Riverside.[6]
Samuel Lancaster acquired about four acres of land adjoining the new cemetery to the west. He began to sell burial lots there and on October 26, 1850 he deeded to the town of Jackson certain parcels of his land designated as burial lots for his family and that of George Snider, providing as well for the registration of lots sold already to William H. Long, Amos W. Jones, Asbury Pegues, Sanders Brown and William W. Gates; these lots ran west to east along what is now street seven in the cemetery; he provided also a lot for the burial of his black servants.[7] Over the next several years he sold numerous other lots, all of which had been properly laid out and numbered. The town therefore acquired by bits and pieces that part of Riverside formerly owned by Samuel Lancaster and his heirs.
In October 1858 a committee appointed to examine the condition of the town cemetery reported that it was "grown up in high grass and weeds, so much so a lady could not well go thro' the yard." It recommended that the forest trees be removed within the cemetery and an effort be made to ornament the grounds.[8] The town council had the grounds cleaned from time to time and anticipating the need for additional burial space decided to negotiate with James Caruthers for land on the north side of the cemetery; this, early in 1862. However, the Civil War temporarily suspended any planning for the cemetery.
The city (now deserving of the title) dealt with Jo. H. Caruthers, his father's administrator, for about a half acre of additional land for burial purposes. On December 16, 1866 the city council ordered the cemetery committee to have the old fence on the north side of the cemetery — about where the south side of street five runs today — removed and a new one erected to enclose any and all the grounds Jo. H. Caruthers (adm.) will permit to be used for burial or cemetery purposes."[9] For years this part of the cemetery was called the Caruthers Division. In 1867 a small house was built in the Caruthers Division for a sexton's residence.[10]
Eugene Sullivan was employed briefly as sexton for the expanded cemetery but early in January 1868 the city hired James Hadaway as sexton who with his family occupied the sexton's house.[11] With the rapid growth of railroads, bringing in more people, the city soon needed more cemetery space. Thomas L. Robinson had bought a small acreage on the north side of the cemetery from the Stoddert family whereon he and his wife and children lived in a modest house. In agreement with the city council in June 1872 Robinson sold a portion of his land for an addition to the cemetery and the city sold lots in which people were buried even before the city had a very clear title to the land. By March 21, 1878, after a long litigation in chancery and a sustained fretful negotiation by the city with Robinson he agreed to sell them his entire tract if they assumed his debt to the Stodderts and settle him in a house on a nearby lot which was agreed upon.[12]
The Beers "Map of Madison County and Jackson," 1877, shows the city cemetery in relation to the Robinson tract, still not a legal part of the cemetery although burials were being made in the Robinson Addition. Admittance to the grounds was from a long entrance on the east side of the cemetery and perhaps from the south. The grounds were open except for rather flimsy, partial fencing. The Robinson house was demolished and the area made into burial lots. Hadaway had faithfully served the city for years, making his detailed monthly reports to the city council, for which he received a modest salary. In 1878 he died from yellow fever and the plat map he had devised was sold to the town for ten dollars.[13]
Excerpt, Beers Map of Madison County and Jackson
A new survey of the cemetery was completed by November 1878 and extensive planting of trees and other improvements were made there by the beginning of 1879.[14] For years this burial ground was simply called the "city cemetery" but in the spring of 1879 a contest was held for the official naming of the cemetery. Benjamin Davidson submitted the name RIVERSIDE, ostensibly because of the close proximity, to the south, of the south fork of the Forked Deer River. In the TRIBUTE and SUN, May 8, 1879 an editorial comment was made that this was "at once the most appropriate and beautiful" of the many names suggested for the cemetery. It has been known by this name ever since.
With space at a premium, in the 1880s, the city assisted the black citizenry of Jackson to purchase land on what is now West Forest Avenue in Jackson for their cemetery called Mt. Olivet. Those blacks who owned lots in Riverside have continued to bury their dead there, including the family of the renowned Bishop Isaac Lane.
Through its cemetery committees over the years Riverside was maintained, working with the sextons who were:
|
James Hadaway, 1868-1878 |
After Bray's demise a sexton was appointed but soon the cemetery was being supervised by the Riverside Cemetery Improvement Association in conjunction with the city council. In the late 1880s the privately owned Hollywood Cemetery located further west in Jackson was established and it became the primary place for city burials but Riverside remained the place of interment for older families and those who wished to bury their dead there. Under the leadership of Mrs. Maud (Holt) King the Riverside Cemetery Improvement Association was organized April 1, 1918. For legal purposes the association was chartered February 28, 1934. One of the town's leading bankers, William A. Caldwell, served as treasurer for the association for years. The official purpose of the organization was "to preserve, maintain, beautify and improve Riverside Cemetery in Jackson, Tennessee" [15]
Acting in the interest of the city council, early in 1903 Samuel C. Lancaster, city engineer, resurveyed and renumbered many of the cemetery lots although the lots on the south slope remained unsurveyed. The last survey to date, that of Earnest R. Dike, was made in 1937. A plat map was kept and the lots were subdivided time and again as shown in the handwriting of association secretary, Miss Anna Butler; a copy of this map is in the Tennessee Room, Jackson-Madison County Library and in the office of the grounds supervisor for the Parks and Recreation Department of the city of Jackson.
When the cemetery was expanded with the Robinson purchase the main entrance to the burial ground was changed to the northwest corner, opening into what is now Riverside Drive. By the summer of 1902 part of the iron fence that had enclosed the courthouse grounds but had been removed was installed on the north side of the cemetery which is yet an attractive feature of this "city of the dead." (It was repaired and repainted in 1995.) In 1939 a high brick wall was erected on the west side of the cemetery; an improved metal fence was raised on the east side of the cemetery in 1945 (removed in 1997 when the cemetery was extended a few feet to the east and replaced the next year); in June 1953 the Lyon family donated the block wall which was raised on the south side of the cemetery.
With the older generations dying out the association decided to cease its existence (its last meeting was held February 18, 1976); in negotiation with the city the latter assumed "full maintenance for the Riverside Cemetery" as of June 25, 1976.[16] The assets of the association were converted into a trust fund, with the First National Bank (now known as First American Bank), through which interest is conveyed to the city each year to help in the maintenance of the cemetery although the city spends much more annually than the trust fund contributes and its does so as the cemetery is a major historic landmark of the community. For a number of years, W. Ed Terry, now a retired banker, assisted the ladies of the association in running the organization and afterwards volunteered to help raise perpetual funds for the cemetery and also helped to locate graves therein for persons who needed such assistance. In more recent years the local Sons of the Confederate Veterans have held an annual walking tour of Riverside Cemetery and have taken an interest in the physical welfare of the grounds.
REFERENCES
l. The acreage determined, in November 1993, by James H. Hanna, retired civil engineer, using the dimensions of the Dike survey of 1937.
2. "Doctor William Edward Butler, Founder of the City of Jackson," by Seale Johnson, THE JACKSON SUN, September 16, 1943, "The old man /W. E. Butler/ who had outlived his era by 25 years was in his coffin. They lifted him tenderly and placed him in the black plumed hearse and started him on his last trek to Riverside Cemetery. There his daughter Jane is said to have been the first to be buried." Other burials of the 1820s and 1830s were made around and near this child's grave.
3. THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL MAGAZINE, "Madison County," by Jay Cisco, volume 8, number l, January 1903, page 27.
4. The deed conveying this acreage was evidently never recorded but mention is made of this conveyance in a November 1832 deed in Madison County deed book 3, page 276 and was again referred to as the "graveyard lot" in a McCorry deed in 1842. IBID., book 8, page 332.
5. "An Old Grave yard," WHIG and TRIBUNE, Jackson, December 23, 1871.
6. JACKSON GAZETTE, November 12, 1825.
7. Madison County deed book 14, page 154; deed recorded November 10, 1850.
8. Jackson Council minutes, April 15, 1858-January 12, 1869, page 191.
9. IBID., page 245.
10. IBID., pages 260-261.
11. IBID., pages 276, 291.
12. Madison County deed book 30, pages 202-205; ibid., book 29, page 224. The deed was registered July 2, 1879. Original deed is in the Recorder's Office, city hall.
13. Jackson City Council minutes, May 8, 1878-May 3, 1880, pages 23, 92, 103.
14. IBID., pages 116, 175.
15. Madison County charter book 7, page 57.
16. Jackson Recorder's minute book 11., pages 87-92. The official records of the Riverside Cemetery Improvement Association, including old minutes, plat map and lot numbers, are kept in the files of the trust department of the First American Bank in Jackson.
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