To request a copy of this photo for your own personal use, please contact our state coordinator. If you are not a family member or the original photographer — please refrain from copying or distributing this photo to other websites.
Thank you for visiting the Arkansas Gravestone Photo Project. On this site you can upload gravestone photos, locate ancestors and perform genealogy research. If you have a relative buried in Arkansas, we encourage you to upload a digital image using our Submit a Photo page. Contributing to this genealogy archive helps family historians and genealogy researchers locate their relatives and complete their family tree.
Submitted: 12/5/21 • Approved: 12/5/21 • Last Updated: 12/8/21 • R1404604-G0-S3
Punkin Town Cemetery
Dewey, Arkansas
GPS Location: Pending 614030 - 3920927
Arkansas Archeological Survey site #: 3WH0606
Photo by Leroy Blair
This cemetery is located at the intersection of Highways 124 and 305 east of Pangburn and north of Dewey. The White County Historical
Society’s original record on Punkin Town Cemetery was created in 1962 when Society members Cloie and Leister Presley visited the site.
Here's how they described it:“A very poor road leads off east through the fields. Soon there is a branch and just after crossing it there is an old road turning to the right. This leads up a hill and to an old house place. The house has burned but there are some buildings still
standing. Just after passing the house, almost across from it, the cemetery is on the left side of the road. It is overgrown and no evidence of care for a long while. There were only three tombstones [William and Elizabeth Jane Sutherlin and Taylor McCauley]. Four graves were covered with rocks, 15 graves showing plainly and two possibilities. There are possibly more if the place was cleaned.” After the Presley’s
report was published, she noted. The Sutherlins were the grandparents of Oran Vaughan of Searcy [a charter member of the White County
Historical Society]. He had the cemetery cleaned after this listing.” The origin of the name “Punkin Town” is not known.Punkin Town
Cemetery was visited August 26, 2000, by Historical Society member Leroy Blair, who lived at nearby Clay. He filed the following report:
“Go straight across 305 onto a dirt road; go down this road about one-quarter mile. There is now a large home on the left.” Jane Hefley of
Little Rock, a member of the White County Historical Society, provided some information in June 2001. She said William and Elizabeth
Jane Sutherlin were the grandparents of her father, Leonard Sutherlin. She said her aunt, Irene Sutherlin Emde of Los Gatos, California,
who was born in 1909, told her there were “maybe 100” graves here. In April 2002, Irene Emde gave Eddie Best of the White County
Historical Society the following list of people that she said are buried at Punkin Town Cemetery. She cited for verification a book Arthur
Edwards and His Descendents by Anthony J. Christensen copyrighted 1991 and published by Mac Anthony Corporation, P.O. Box 768,
Spanish Fork, Utah 84660. She also provided pedigree charts of the families involved. Burials on her list occurred as early as 1844, making
Punkin Town one of the oldest recorded cemeteries in White County. Mrs. Emde told Best that across the road from the Punkin Town
Cemetery (“where a new barn has been built”) is a cemetery containing the graves of at least four former slaves. She said she remembered
seeing at least one grave in 1978 and thinks that the graves “are the freed Negroes who worked for the family.” Mrs. Emde said she thought
many of the 11 children of Margaret (Edwards) and Rainey Parsons Brown could be buried here. Their daughter Nancy Brown married
Elijah Bailey. He, his brother Abner and other Bailey family members are buried here.2005: “I visited Punkin Town Cemetery on July 3
and thought you might like an update. I live in California but I was visiting Pangburn for a family reunion of the descendants of P.C. and
Icy Wood, my grandparents. I knew that we had ancestors buried in Punkin Town Cemetery, but I had not been there for about 25 years, at
which time the owner of the property was not related to my family. William and Elizabeth Jane Sutherlin, whose headstones are still there, were my great-great-grandparents. I went to the door of the house next to the cemetery to ask if I could go inside the gate to look around,
only to discover my cousin answering the door! My uncle now owns the property and the family farms there. When they purchased the
property there were, indeed, only three headstones remaining. They have fixed up the gravesites as best they could. They are neatly marked,
and the broken headstones have been somewhat repaired by being put together, laid flat, in a bed of cement. I have attached pictures I took
while there. My cousin thought there were a large number of slaves buried across the road, but there were no markers. This is still private
property and the driveway is often gated, but they might not mind visitors if someone is home and you ask permission.”
If you have corrections or additions to this list or other information on this Cemetery, Contact the White County Historical Society, P.O. Box 537, Searcy, AR 72145. Or phone 501-278-5010 or Email Leroy “Lee” Blair at lblblair74@gmail.com
www.argenweb.net
Contributed on 12/5/21 by hawkinsdonna48
Email This Contributor
Suggest a Correction
Record #: 1404604