Nesbitt Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Twin brothers, same blood, same Tennessee roots, same wagon trail west. Robert Jameison and Nathan L.

Nesbitt arrived in this part of Harrison County together in 1847, and whatever they found out here, they decided it was worth staying for. Now, when twins settle a place side by side, you might think their stories would run parallel all the way through. But stories have a way of branching.

The first grave dug in what would become this cemetery belonged to Nathan's wife, Psyche Nesbitt. She went by Sackey. Born in 1815, she was gone by 1851, and the ground here accepted her before it had a name.

That's the kind of beginning a family cemetery has, quiet and sorrowful and permanent. Robert's wife, Susan Adeline Nesbitt, born in 1827, was a different kind of presence in this community. In a place with no doctor to speak of, she nursed her sick neighbors.

When someone needed tending, Susan showed up. She lived until 1901, and before she was done, she made sure this land would hold her family. She donated the site for the cemetery herself.

Then Robert died, and Susan took his pension, money earned through his service in the Mexican War, which ran from 1846 to 1848, and she used every bit of it to fence the plot. She drew a line around the people she loved. That matters.

Years later, in 1969, Nesbitt descendants, led by Julian Womack Nesbitt, established a trust fund for the perpetual care of this cemetery. Two brothers came out of Tennessee in 1847. What they left behind has people looking after it still.

What the marker says

Robert Jameison (1810-86) and Nathan L. Nesbitt, twin brothers from Tennessee, settled this area in 1847. First grave here was that of Nathan's wife, Psyche ("Sackey") Walker Nesbitt (1815-51) Robert's wife, Susan Adeline Nesbitt (1827-1901), who often nursed sick neighbors in the absence of a community doctor, donated this site for the family cemetery. After her husband died, she used her pension from his service in the Mexican war (1846-48) to fence the plot. Nesbitt descendants, led by Julian Womack Nesbitt, established a trust fund for perpetual care of the cemetery in 1969.