McNAIRY COUNTY, TN - CEMETERIES - Moore's Schoolhouse Cemetery  
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                Moore's Schoolhouse Cemetery

          McNairy County Independent, July 18, 1924

On the 13th of July, 1924, we were of the immense crowd that
attended the burying ceremonies of an old citizen of the county,
W. W. Robinson, who died on the 12th at his home in Bethel Springs.
The old burying ground, with in which sleep other members of this
prominent family, is situated just north of the old stage road, and
about 6 miles from Selmer, and not quite so far from Bethel
Springs.  It is on a gentle slope, surrounded on three sides by
beautiful groves.  Near the entrance is located the old school
house known for more than several generations back as Moore's
schoolhouse.

Beyond this place and to the west was once a thriving inland town
called in that day old Camden.  There they had stores, a tavern and
a saloon, a stage stand, and many homes.  This was on the hill
where J. E. Williams now lives. Some of the old merchants were W.
S. Wisdom, who had for his partner the father of the Hon. C. A.
Miller, of Bolivar.  And then old Uncle Laney Moore had a store
there, and many of the oldest citizens and settlers of the county
once lived there and in the that community.  Mr. Jack Wilkerson,
one of the old men of Bolivar, now nearly 85 years of age used to
be a merchant there at old Camden, and he married out here.  He is
spending his last days with his faithful wife in their home in
Bolivar where for many years he was a successful merchant. Just
east of this old burying ground is another old place, Sandy Flat.
And by that place also ran the old road.

But we went into this old burying place, and viewed the old and
moss covered and weather stained monuments.  As we read the names,
and looked at the dates, we could not keep back the recollections
of the past, nor the history that was unfolded as we continued our
walk through the silent city of the dead.

In the far corner is the first grave, said to be that of an old
soldier.  His name is unknown, and there is a rough sandstone,
uncarved and unlettered monument that marks this grave.  There is a
monument in the cemetery near the capital of this great nation,
erected to the memory of the unknown soldier. But here in McNairy
county, by the side of an old schoolhouse, there is an unknown
soldier who sleeps. Some tender and loving hands in the long ago,
somewhere bade this soldier a fond farewell. He answered the call
of his country. He gave his life.

And  a little remove from this one we found another grave, and
there a monument whose burial was marked.  It was that of an old
soldier whose sane, was known, and who one time in the history of
county was one of its prominent citizens.  The monument was erected
to the memory of Dr. L. D. Budlong.  His name is on it and also
these words, Co. B, 1st R. I. L. A.  We understand these letters to
mean 1st Rhode Island Light Artillery.  So he came to this country
as a soldier a long time ago, and from a state a long way from us.
But he became one of our people, and lived the remainder of his
life here.  His hood wife survives him.

We saw the monument erected to the memory of Dempsey Moore and his
wife, Polly Moore, the former born in 1789, the latter in 1793.  He
died in 1855, and she in 1856.  He was born the first year of
George Washington's administration, and she during the beginning of
his second.  They died before the war, when this country was all
torn with sectional strife, and when the war clouds had began to
gather upon the political horizon.  They were of the oldest
settlers in the county. Their children were Clint, Barton , Shelby,
?????, Summers and Lafayette Moore, and Polly, who married a
Martin.

Then we saw the monument that marked the grave of Poll Leonard and
on that the date of her birth, 1810, and that of her death, in the
year 1833.  Her husband was Nathan Leonard, and he died in Texas
many years ago. and sleeps in a grave out there far removed from
that of his faithful companion, who sleeps in the graveyard at old
Moore's schoolhouse.  And we saw the monument of the grave of Pete
Leonard, and the double one at the graves of his son J. C. Leonard
and his wife, they dying in Selmer in May, 1907, only a few days
apart.  He was the sheriff of the county. Then along the western
edge of the cemetery we saw the graves of George Whitten and wife,
he born in 1838, and the date of her death is 1848.  He died in
1890, and the date of her death is 1887.  We saw the monuments of
E. F. Basham and wife.  They were old settlers of the county, he
born in 1838, and she in 1843.  At  these graves there stands
another double monument.  There are the graves of Dave Robinson, a
brother of W. W. Robinson, one time member of the county court,
from the second district, and also the grave of Thos. Robinson, Co.
A., 6th Tennessee.  His brothers were Mad, Brad and John White.
There is the grave of J. W. Clifton, Co. B, 6th Tennessee.  He was
one time prominent in the history of the county. Then we saw the
grave of the wife of D. R. Cothran, and the graves of the children
of Scott and Lizzie Robinson, and of the children of W. A. and N.
A. Laughlin.  Then there is the grave of Delia, wife of P. S.
Leonard, born in 1827.  We walked on out and by the grave of
Blueford Moore, and to the west the double monument that stands now
to the memory of W. W. Robinson and his wife, V. C. Robinson.  And
we see t monument erected in memory of Grady Simpson, who met an
untimely death in the waters of Hatchie river. To our left as we
passed out is an unusual monument.  It marks the grave of another
soldier. There is the chiseled and lettered monument that stands at
the head of the grave, and a huge marble slab covers the grave.  It
is the grave of E. H. Moore, born in 1886, on the 19th day
December, and died September 29, 1918, Chatteau  Thierry , Co. K,
119th Inf. "He was faithful to every duty."  And what a history
there is interwoven with the words on this monument; that of the
greatest war in all the history of the world.  Far removed form
that red battle line and the smoke and din of the raging battles
3000 miles sway, sleep in the quiet graveyard around which he
played when a child, one of the soldier boys of this good county.
The government for which he gave his life, brought his remains back
to the home of his boyhood and young manhood, and those who loved
him gave them honored sepulture in the graveyard out there.

We participated in the funeral services of the occasion, and came
on home.  These old cemeteries hold within their confines and
embrace treasures that are the shrines before which millions of
people everywhere bow in solemn and humble reverence.