​​The 2018 Restoration of Founders Cemetery

Sylvia Johnson (l) and Janice Brock (r), co-chairs of the Historic Preservation Committee.

Founders Cemetery

Regent's Introduction

Restoration Video

Donation Letter

Donation Form

Cemetery Tour

Donors

Burials

The Historical Preservation Committee of the Judith Robinson Chapter, DAR, led by Chair Sylvia Johnson and assistant Janice Brock, began the restoration of Founders Cemetery in 2018. Other committee members include Janice Fortenberry, Helen Johnson, Cathy Harvey, Jane Ard, Mona Ray, Ann Hobgood, Carla Stringer, Dell Clawson, Sonya Johnson, Virginia Zeigler, and Lynn Williams. The committee began their project with a fund-raising drive, sending out letters and making presentations to various organizations, including a Power Point presentation designed by Cathy Harvey. As a result of this drive, many generous donations were obtained from individuals, organizations, and local businesses totaling over $8,000.  These funds have allowed the committee members to transform the historical Founders Cemetery from an abandoned, dilapidated graveyard into an aesthetically pleasing and historically accurate monument to the founders of Tylertown.

​The restoration project has made the following improvements and additions to the cemetery:

• Existing monuments were leveled, repaired, and cleaned. Vandals had broken or damaged every child’s headstone and many of the adult headstones. Pieces of some headstones were found scattered over the cemetery, and several headstones were never found. All of the monuments had darkened with mildew and age; names and inscriptions could not be read.

Cora Conerly (1878-1908)

Arkansas Rushing Sandifer Brumfield (1851-1905)

Kenneth Ball (May 6, 1895-Dec. 4, 1895)

• Markers were provided for unmarked graves of children and adults. These included some that had been totally destroyed and some wooden ones that had deteriorated through the years. In all, forty-four new gravestones were added to the cemetery.  The committee conducted research to determine the correct information to be placed on these markers. The identification of these burials was based on The Tombstone Inscriptions of Walthall County (1976) by Irma and William Lampton, which reflected research by Effie Otera Ball (1874-1971).  Ms. Ball was the daughter of Daniel Newton Ball (1833-1897), who is buried at Founders.  Her efforts to preserve and maintain the cemetery spanned over twenty years.  As a result of her continuing efforts, two entrance posts to the cemetery were erected in 1962.  Other sources of information for the markers, including dates, were censuses, family history books, Bible records, and family interviews.  Also helpful was a granite slab listing burials in two rows adjacent to the slab that was placed in the cemetery in 1978 by Lottie Magee Miller (1910-1994).  ​

Founders Cemetery (prior to restoration)

After Restoration

• ​In addition to the burials listed in the Lampton book, three additional burials were discovered:  pioneer William Thornhill, his wife Liddy Breland Thornhill, and Henry Magee. The location of their burials was identified primarily through information handed down by word of mouth to family members through generations.  Other means of verification include family records and interviews, censuses, land and tax records. The committee also relied upon two historical books written by natives of Walthall County:  Pike County, Mississippi 1798-1876 (1909) by Luke Ward Conerly, reprinted in Resource Records of Pike/Walthall Counties Mississippi, 1798-1910 and Miscellaneous Legal and Family Records Pertaining to the Areas of Pike and Walthall Counties, Mississippi by Louisiana genealogist E. Russ Williams, Jr. (1989); and When My World Was Young:  A Collection of Reminiscent Historical Articles about Tylertown and Walthall County (1973) by Rev. Fred L. Applewhite.  William and his wife Lydia Thornhill lived close to the cemetery, which is on land first owned by William’s brother Joseph and later by William’s son-in-law Ephraim Rushing. Henry Magee’s wife Catherine is a daughter of Ephraim Rushing and is buried in Founders, as well as their son Henry Iverson Magee and his wife.  ​​​

• The discovery of the burial places of William Thornhill, a Revolutionary War veteran, and Henry Magee, a War of 1812 veteran, meant a total of nine veterans, including six Civil War soldiers.  Given its size, Founders is an unusual historic cemetery in that it has veterans from all three of these wars.  ​​
• The committee applied for and was granted headstones by the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs to mark the graves of two War of 1812 soldiers and two Civil War soldiers.  ​​
• Military Flag holders and flags were placed at the gravesites of War of 1812 and Civil War veterans.  The flag holders for the six Civil War veterans were donated by Brent Rifles 2137 United Daughters of the Confederacy.  ​

Buddy Smith with Divining Rod

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• A chart was prepared with a diagram of the location of the graves. A permanent chart is planned that will be mounted on a stand to assist visitors to the cemetery in locating graves in which they are interested.  ​

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• ​​The committee applied for and was granted a State Historical Marker by the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. The $2,040 cost was met by donations from individual members of the Judith Robinson Chapter, DAR; Chapter XV, Colonial Dames of America; and the Southwest Mississippi Genealogical Society.  ​

• ​For visitors’ convenience, four sets of two concrete benches, each placed on a patio-styled stone base, were provided by donors in honor of someone special to them. Walthall County Historical Society honored genealogical researchers William and Irma Lampton and county historians Louis and Gwen Conerly; Zandyn Tolar, Eagle Scout, honored Boy Scout Troop 138; Dr. Luke Lampton honored his parents, Dr. Bob and Sara Lea Lott Lampton, as well as grandparents Clyde and Dorothy Lea Crawford Lott; Judith Robinson Chapter, DAR honored Janice Fortenberry, Chapter Regent; the Brad and Anna Platt family honored Sylvia Johnson, Historic Preservation Committee Chair.  ​

Boy Scout Troop 138, Tylertown, Mississippi

DAR members at work

Two benches were donated by Dr. Luke Lampton in honor of his parents, Dr. Bob and Sara Lea Lott Lampton; and his grandparents, Clyde and Dorothy Lea Crawford Lott.

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• In further beautification of the site, the Committee welcomed Boy Scout Troop 138 members to assist Zandyn Tolar with his Eagle Scout project of cleaning and leveling the cemetery grounds. Town of Tylertown maintenance workers provided a large culvert, removed a large stump, and continue to mow and maintain the grounds.

This process of restoration-identifying graves, repairing gravestones and erecting new ones, securing VA military markers and a State Historical Marker as well as beautifying the site-has produced a dramatic change in the appearance and substance of Founders Cemetery.  Research and restoration have revealed that Founders is the final resting place of soldiers from three wars: the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Civil War.  They and others buried here were farmers, millers, teachers and merchants, reflecting a time line of 1835 to1919, when Tylertown developed from a pioneer farming area to a business community. The 184-year-old cemetery thus serves as not only an historical record of Tylertown, Mississippi, but also reflects the history of the nation as a whole.