Clinton Cemetery offers historical significance
By Guest Columnist Barbara Selby
The Clinton Cemetery, nestled among the live oaks and cedars high on a hill located on College Street, has often been referred to as one of the most beautiful and historic landmarks in central Mississippi.
The first graves found are dated about two hundred years ago in the 1830s. The founding of the cemetery reflects the early territorial days of Mississippi. Names found on the older monuments are a who’s who of early pioneers, women, children, merchants, planters, innkeepers, lawyers, doctors and citizens prominent in local government.
Found buried in the Clinton Cemetery are eleven college presidents, a number of missionaries, many educators and a U.S. District Judge.
The cemetery is a place of serenity. As you wander through this lovely setting and read the beautiful historic monuments, you will find a circle of markers honoring the Union and Confederate soldiers that lost their lives here in the battle in 1863. There, too, are soldiers buried in our cemetery from the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II and the Korean War.
The cemetery has not always been the beautiful place of reflection that it is today. In the early years, cattle and pigs roamed freely through the markers, and only a few citizens kept up their plots. In the 1920s, several families from Clinton gathered together to try and save this beautiful landmark.
In 1932, the Clinton Cemetery Association was formally incorporated. The beauty and preservation of this historical cemetery is due largely to the initiative, care, hard work and financial oversight of those early board members. That same dedication continues to this day.
The current cemetery board has had underground radar mapping done recently, the trees have been trimmed to protect the markers and monuments beneath the trees, and the road has been paved for easy access to the cemetery.
Please take time this spring to come and enjoy the historic markers found among the magnolias and cedars.
