DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm going to pass it along just the way it reads. Out here in Newton County, there's a piece of ground that carries the weight of everything the Bleakwood community was and became. After the Civil War, pioneers came into this country and built something real.
They put up mills, got cotton gins running, and settled in for the long haul. One of those early men was Reuben Bennington, a mill-owner, and when the community needed a place to lay its people to rest, he donated an acre of land. That became the Bleakwood Cemetery.
The oldest marked grave they have out there belongs to Doulie Lee, dated January 24, 1871. Think about that. Someone was already being buried here while the sawdust from those new mills was still fresh in the air.
The years kept moving, as they do. By 1940, a man named J. K.
Wilson gave an additional acre of land to the cemetery, and he did it in memory of his wife, Minnie Lee. Not for glory, not for a plaque. For her.
Scattered across this ground are veterans, men who answered the call from the Civil War all the way through the Korean War. Different eras, different uniforms, same quiet ground. And that ground doesn't go untended.
The Bleakwood Cemetery Association, incorporated in 1975, sees to it that every grave receives full care. Pioneers, mill men, veterans, a husband honoring his wife. One acre, then two.
Bleakwood didn't let its people be forgotten.
What the marker says
Pioneers who settled the Bleakwood community after the Civil War established thriving mill and cotton gin businesses. Mill-owner Reuben Bennington donated an acre of land for this cemetery to serve area residents. The oldest marked grave, that of Doulie Lee, is dated Jan. 24, 1871. In 1940 J. K. Wilson gave an additional acre of land to the cemetery in memory of his wife Minnie Lee. Veterans of wars from the Civil War to the Korean War are buried here. The graves are given full care by the Bleakwood Cemetery Association, incorporated in 1975. (1981)