Mount Holly Cemetery
Mount Holly Cemetery | |
![]() Mount Holly Cemetery in May 2008 | |
Location in Arkansas | |
Location | 1200 S. Broadway St., Little Rock, Arkansas |
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Coordinates | 34°44′15.3″N 92°16′42.5″W / 34.737583°N 92.278472°W |
Built | February 23, 1843 |
Website | mounthollycemetery |
NRHP reference No. | 70000125[1] |
Added to NRHP | March 5, 1970 |
Mount Holly Cemetery is a historic cemetery located in the Quapaw Quarter area of downtown Little Rock in the U.S. state of Arkansas, and is the burial place for numerous Arkansans of note. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1970 and has been nicknamed "The Westminster Abbey of Arkansas".
Major events
"Tales of the Crypt"
Every year in October several drama students from Parkview Arts and Science Magnet High School are each given a person buried in the cemetery to research. They then prepare short monologues or dialogues, complete with period costumes, to be performed in front of the researched person's grave. Audiences are led through the cemetery from grave to grave by guides with candles. The event is called "Tales of the Crypt". Although it takes place around the same time as the American holiday Halloween, the event is meant to be historic rather than spooky.
2016 vandalism
The cemetery experienced heavy vandalism in the overnight hours of April 20, 2016. Numerous headstones were toppled and smashed, including the well-known statues of a mourner next to statues of two little girls.[2]
Notable burials
The cemetery is the burial place for ten former Arkansas governors, six United States senators, 14 Arkansas Supreme Court justices, 21 Little Rock mayors, numerous Arkansas literary figures, Confederate generals, and other worthies. There are also several slaves who are buried there, marked by modest gravestones.
- Samuel Adams (1805–1850), Arkansas Governor
- Dale Alford (1916–2000), U.S. Representative (1959–63) and ophthalmologist
- Chester Ashley (1791–1848), US Senator
- W. Jasper Blackburn (1820–1899), US Congressman
- Solon Borland (1811–1864), physician and US Senator
- Elias Nelson Conway (1812–1892), Arkansas Governor
- Jeff Davis (1862–1913), Arkansas Governor
- David Owen Dodd (1846–1864), boy martyr of the Confederacy
- James Philip Eagle (1837–1904), Arkansas Governor
- James Fleming Fagan (1828–1893), Confederate Major General
- Sandford C. Faulkner (1803–1874), the original 'Arkansas Traveller'
- John Gould Fletcher (1886–1950), Pulitzer Prize–winning poet, with his wife, noted children's book author Charlie May Simon (1897–1977)
- Thomas Fletcher (1817–1880), acting governor of Arkansas (1862)[3]
- William Savin Fulton (1795–1844), U.S. senator from Arkansas (1836–1844)
- Augustus Hill Garland (1876–1907), Arkansas Governor
- John N. Heiskell (1872–1972), US Senator and editor of the Arkansas Gazette
- Simon Pollard Hughes Jr. (1830–1906), Arkansas Governor
- George Izard (1776–1828), governor of Arkansas Territory from 1825 to 1828
- Robert Ward Johnson (1814–1879), C.S. senator from Arkansas (1862–1865)
- George R. Mann (1856–1939), architect
- William Read Miller (1823–1887) Arkansas Governor
- Allison Nelson (1822–1862), politician and Confederate Brigadier General
- Thomas Willoughby Newton (1804–1853) US Congressman
- Elizabeth Quatie Brown Ross, wife of John Ross (Cherokee chief) (1791–1839), Cherokee figure
- Albert Rust (1818–1870), US Congressman and Confederate Brigadier General (cenotaph)
- Ambrose H. Sevier (1801–1848), U.S. senator from Arkansas (1836–1848)
- Bernard Smith (1776–1835), US Congressman
- David D. Terry (1881–1963), US Congressman
- Cephas Washburn (1793–1860), missionary
- Edward Washburn (1831–1860), artist
- Frank D. White (1933–2003), governor of Arkansas from 1981 to 1983
- William W. Wilshire (1830–1888), U.S. representative from 1873 to 1877; chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court from 1868 to 1871
- William E. Woodruff (1795–1885), founder of the Arkansas Gazette
See also
References
- ^ "National Register Information System – (#70000125)". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
- ^ Koon, David (April 20, 2016). "Vandals strike Mt. Holly Cemetery, severely damage several monuments and statues". Retrieved July 27, 2016.
- ^ "The Late Judge Fletcher". The Tennessean. Vol. 4, no. 1, 415. Nashville. March 3, 1880. p. 2.
External links
![](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/30px-Commons-logo.svg.png)
- Official
- General information