Wilson Valley community originally consisted of the seven Wilson brothers, their wives and children, and the Huckabee and Thornton families. They came from Mississippi in 1867 to escape Civil War devastation. According to family tradition, Easter Cobb Wilson, family matriarch, expressed a desire to be buried on a certain hillside. Her son Calvin Wilson designated a plot on that hill to be a family cemetery. In 1869, William J. R. Wilson, 3-year-old son of Ben and Edna Wilson, became the first to be interred at this site. Several others had been buried by 1877 when Easter Cobb Wilson died at age 81. In 1893, Bartlett and Avie McGregor Marks Huckabee deeded 3.27 acres of land, including the family plot, to the trustees of the Wilson Valley Cemetery Association. Wilson Valley, which had become a thriving area, declined when the railroad went through Little River, and gradually the two communities merged. Graves in the cemetery reflect a high infant-child mortality rate in the late 19th century and deaths due to an influenza epidemic in 1917 and 1981. A 19th century tabernacle is used for meetings and ceremonies. In 1997, over 1,300 graves were counted in the cemetery. (1997)
This page last updated: 7/15/2008 |
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