WITHERS CEMETERY, County
Line Road, LIMESTONE COUNTY ALABAMA
Mapping the Location
Area photo views of the Cemetery: 4153/4154/4155/4160/4161/4162/4163/4170/4193
WITHERS, John Wright, 1796 - 12 Mar 1836. 4156C/4156
WITHERS, Palmyra Jordan, w/o John Wright Withers, 10 Mar 1806 - 16 Aug 1864.
4156C/4156
WITHERS, Clement Clay, 15 Oct 1831 - 23 Nov 1859. 4151/footstone
C.C.W.: 4152/4153
JONES, Eliza J. Withers, w/o A.G. Jones, 4 Sep 1823 - 2 Jan 1901.
4157C/4157
JONES, "Erected by _____ Jones in memory of his_________ E. A. Jones" Broken
Stone found in deep sink by Linda & Wayne Smith 8 Apr 1990.*4164/4165/4166/4167/4168
SOUTHARD, Palmyra Jones, 27 Sep 1857 - 25 Mar 1889 **
4148/4149/4158/4159
Crumbled tombstone marking an unknown grave beside and one grave to the south of
the Palmyra Jones Southard monument. 4150
*I noticed the grave sink & fragments of the crumbling stone mentioned in
Linda Smith's book, but I believe the inscription has
disappeared since Linda Smith & husband visited here 8 Apr 1990 or nearly 25
years ago.
Two or three tombstone bases were found
with no evidence of the actual stone. These seem to be of concrete which dates
them to the early 1900s, but it is possible they were cut from weak limestone and
thus could be dated earlier. *One large stone had fallen over into an
extremely large "grave sink" and any hope of reading the inscription has
been lost. This is an indication of a wooden casket and poor back filling of the
grave. More
stones may exist, but were not found today 15 Mar 2015. A serious clearing of
the cemetery needs to occur to find anymore tombstones.
There were a total of three sinks that had no tombstones including the one
listed above with the surname Jones. I think it safe to declare that person had
the surname Jones. 4169/4171/same
one again:4172
**Palmyra was the daughter of Thomas S. Jones & Mary Withers Jones and the first
wife of Nial Southard (Dec 7, 1854 - Sep 30, 1905) who is buried in Texarkana,
Miller Co., Ark
with his second family. Contributed by Nancy S. Oliver. See findagrave.com
< http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=southard&GSiman=1&GScid=56892&GRid=39015130&
>
No mention is made in Arkansas of the 2nd wife. Nail's stone is a modest
concrete marker no longer utilized in marking graves, because of their being
fragile.
These stones in this cemetry are very thick & heavy and can withstand trees falling on them to some
degree, but the Eliza Jones monument has already been knocked from it base. The
inscription is still available to the public though.
The old Withers homeplace is gone now. The brush & decay have taken over. It originally
looked to Linda & Wayne Smith back in 1990 to have been first damaged by high winds. The cemetery is now
under large trees, and except for a few saw briars most of the overgrown vines has been shaded
out. Periwinkle has now covered the graves.
The woodland area is very large because it encompassed the home, graveyard
including probably barns which all have been allowed to return to mother nature
or abolished. All
those assets stood for about 100 year, being built around the 1840s in the
business boom of that time & was destroyed sometime after about 1940 to 1960. The graveyard is
in the far south-west corner of the woodland in an area that is
higher than the surrounding terrain.
Tour an old nearby 1950s trash dump for some long lost relics
Old appliances and broken bottles from the nearby 1940 - 1960 trash dump -
private property - do not go here and pilfer. [] An old Ice Chest 1930-1950:
4173/4174/Ice Chest Door:
4175/Cooling Coil - Ice Chest:4176/Large
Steel pin used for hitching mules or tractors: 4177/Quart Mason
Jars some broken:4178/4179/4180/Milk
Can (Canister) used to keep milk cool and transfer it to the market. Every farm
family owned several of these. They were filled with fresh milk taken from
milking the cows early in the morning, and then the farmer set the filled can down at
the end of his road where it was collected by a truck or team of mules in
earlier times. The receipts from the milk were credited toward the purchase of
sugar and other raw food products or given back as cash:
4181/4182/more glass bottles and pottery:4183/4184/Mason
fruit Jar above an old shoe of the 1930s: 4185/An old
ringer washer. The tub turned and washed the clothes, then the clothes were fed thru
a roller mechanism that squeezed out the water before they were hung on the
clothes line. Earlier versions used a rub board to wash and squeeze the water
from the clothes:4186/4187/Brown
bottle contained Clorox at one time: 4188/4190/It
is dated 1965:4189/General area view:
4191/This is obviously the trash thrown out from the
old home place in the 1940 - 1960. As usually happens in the death of an old
plantation home, when these homes fell on hard times, the owners allowed area
poor people to take them over and become renters. Most of these folks actually
damaged them beyond repair causing their demolition, but nuttin against "Po
folks": 4192
This Cemetery presentation is based on the photography of Wayne Austin on
15 Mar 2015. Final editing and uploading by the same on 16 May 2015. It was also presented in the book Limestone County Alabama
Cemeteries by Linda & Wayne Smith on Page 515, 8 Apr 1990 published within a
couple years of that. They omitted the listing for John Wright Withers d. 1836.
Other than that - perfect.