Flint Creek Cemetery in dire need of care
Posted on Thursday, September 7, 2006
GENTRY - Flint Creek Cemetery, like many other cemeteries across Benton County and the state, is falling into a state of neglect and disrepair.
In the case of this rural cemetery, responsibility for upkeep now rests upon one person and limited funds.
It seems that few think about cemeteries until their friends and loved ones rest there or they themselves must consider and choose a final resting place. Once the friends and families of the dead are also gone or move away, care and upkeep of a burial place is often neglected.
That, it seems, is the plight of Flint Creek Cemetery. With burials going back to at least 1871, if not earlier, most family members and friends are gone, meaning care and upkeep suffers. Grave markers have fallen, broken headstones lean against other grave markers. The sign which once stood at the entrance to the cemetery is also gone.
The cemetery, located just north of Flint Creek on Dawn Hill Road, used to have a cemetery board. As time passed, all but one of the board members died, and the remaining member moved away. Responsibility for the care passed on to Virginia Chesnut, who is about to turn 74.
Though her grandson usually helps her mow, on Thursday evening she handled it alone. When her own children were young, she mowed for $ 5 or $ 6. Now she uses money left in her care for expenses, but the dollars are running low.
Flint Creek Cemetery needs volunteers to serve on the cemetery board and needs money to continue to keep up the cemetery grounds. Work has been scheduled this fall for a local monument company to reset some of the fallen headstones.
A fund also has been established for the cemetery's maintenance at Arvest Bank. Donors may contribute to the fund at any Arvest Bank.
Anyone interested in reforming a cemetery board and serving on it or helping with preservation and clean-up work at the Flint Creek Cemetery may contact Virginia Chesnut at 736-8063.
Chesnut has ties to the cemetery: Her parents and former mother and fatherin-law are buried there.
Among those buried there are William Merrit Woody, who moved from Georgia to Benton County during the Civil War and eventually settled along Flint Creek south of Gentry. He ran a freight line, using a two-team hitch (four horses ) with each freight wagon, and ran between Hico (now Siloam Springs ), Bentonville and Rogers. The round trip sometimes took three or four days, depending on weather and road conditions.
Henry Hodges was buried there in February 1899. From 1870 to 1892, he operated a flour and grist mill on Flint Creek, near the present day Ozark Adventist Academy. A flood that washed away much of Siloam Springs also washed away the mill.
Wm. A. Goode rests in the cemetery. Born in 1847, he died in 1930. He fought in the Civil War as a part of Co. K, 5 th Tenn. Mtd. Inf., a Union company from Bradley County, Tenn.
On and on the list goes of people with lives of historical significance, but now pretty much forgotten. In many cases, the headstones which mark their burial places no longer stand.
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