Atkinson Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to give it its due. Now, out here in Washington County, there's a cemetery carrying a name with a little history folded into it. The name honors Jethro Atkinson, who served as mayor of Chappell Hill in 1857, and whose plantation stood somewhere close by.

That's the kind of man a place remembers. But the ground itself goes back further. A good bit further.

The earliest marked grave on this site dates to 1844, and at that time, the land belonged to a man named Robert Wooding Chappell. You may recognize that name. The city of Chappell Hill is named for him.

So you've got one name on the town and a different name on the cemetery, and both of them reach right down into the same piece of Washington County soil. Now, cemeteries need tending, and somebody has to see to it that the work gets done long after the founding generation is gone. In 1957, the Atkinson Cemetery Association was formed, dedicated to providing perpetual care for the site.

Perpetual. That's a serious word. That's people making a promise to the future.

From Robert Wooding Chappell in 1844, to Jethro Atkinson's time as mayor, to an association formed a century later to keep the whole thing standing. Some places just refuse to be forgotten.

What the marker says

Name honors 1857 mayor of Chappell Hill, Jethro Atkinson, whose plantation was nearby. In 1844, date of earliest marked grave, site was owned by Robert Wooding Chappell, for whom city was named. Formed in 1957, Atkinson Cemetery Association provides perpetual care. 1966