The Jackson Purchase region of Kentucky is comprised of the eight westernmost counties - Ballard, Calloway, Carlisle, Fulton, Graves, Hickman, Marshall and McCracken. It is bordered on the west by the Mississippi River, on the north by the Ohio River, on the east by the Tennessee River and the state of Tennessee to the south. By Kentuckians it is generally referred to simply as "the Purchase".

Andrew Jackson and Isaac Shelby purchased the land lying west of the Tennessee River from the Chickasaw tribe and opened the area for settlement around 1820. Within the next few years, my grandfather's ancestors came there from Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee - the Beadles, Clapps, Pryors and Wingos settled in Graves County with the Reeves and Halls in neighboring Ballard County.

Tuesday, November 27, 2012

Tombstone Tuesday - Mittie A. Grace




Arminta "Mittie Ann" Grace was the daughter of Richard Grace and Lorenna Antonette Wingo of Graves County, Kentucky. She died at the age of seventeen and is buried in the Camp Beauregard Cemetery outside of Water Valley, Kentucky.

Camp Beauregard was originally a Confederate training camp during the civil war. During the six months that it was an active military installation it was decimated by diseases such as pneumonia, typhoid fever and meningitis. By the time the camp was evacuated on March 1, 1862, 1000 confederate soldiers who had never engaged in battle were dead. The United Daughters of the Confederacy placed a large memorial there at the site of a mass grave of those soldiers.

In subsequent years, it has been a public cemetery and used by the families of the community. There are local legends that the site is haunted, but I have personally never encountered any malevolent spirits there. It's a lovely quiet hilltop with a view of the surrounding countryside.

No comments:

Post a Comment