Stamps Cemetery

El Paso/Floyd, Arkansas

It is not known who took this Photo

This Cemetery is also known as: None known

GPS Location: 592399-3891951

Arkansas Archeological Survey site #: 3Wh0702

Number of Marked Graves: About 4

Number of Unmarked Graves: Unknown ,But many

The last complete survey of this cemetery was: Sam Holloway, Date unknown

Current status of cemetery: No longer in use.

Point of contact for cemetery. No known contact person.



This old cemetery is located between El Paso and Floyd, 18 miles from Searcy. In addition to the county’s largest landowner of

1840 and other notables, it is believed that White County’s first judge and postmaster is buried here.

The following directions were provided by White County Historical Society member Shelly Keech, who visited the site in December

2000: "To reach the cemetery, at the intersection of highways 305 and 31 at Floyd, take El Paso Road. Follow the paved road until

it becomes gravel. Keep going. Look to the left until you see a clump of trees. (They look like they were purposely left

there...they were). The cemetery is inside of the trees. There is an older white frame house (the old Choate place) on the right."

Keech was photographing the cemetery when she and family members were asked to leave because deer hunters were in the

area. Leroy Blair, another Historical Society member, found a risk of another kind when he and his wife Ellen visited the site May

14, 2001. "I had on a light-colored shirt," he wrote in his report, "and when I got back to the car my shirt was almost black. I would

guess we got well over 100 ticks off my shirt alone. I was covered in tick bites from head to toe." He said he would return in the

fall when the leaves and ticks are gone. Blair could locate only two of the graves listed. He added the following to Shelly Keech’s

directions: "As a reference point, on the right of El Paso Road, there is what looks like an old store building but is now a hunting

club headquarters; the cemetery is directly across the road from this building, in the field about 300 yards, under the trees."

The late Donald Choate, who owned this farm, was a member of the Society and had provided information and assistance in

researching this important historical site. By coincidence, Historical Society member Gerald Torrence was able to obtain the

photographs at the bottom of this report about the time of Keech’s visit.

In 1964, the White County Historical Society published in its annual

White County Heritage

a list of five people who were buried on

the Donald Choate farm at this location. They were the four Walkers and Mary J. Watkins. In May 2000, Historical Society member

Mary Dean Reynolds provided documents indicating her great grandfather Jackson Price was also buried there. On June 18, 1968,

Mrs. Reynolds wrote Choate the following: "In a recent conversation with my aunt, Mary Anne Carson, she told me of your finding

the grave of Jackson Price," and asked him if he would send her information on the tombstone. Choate sent her a note that stated,

"The stone says My Beloved Husband" and contained a drawing of two hands clasped together, along with Price’s birth and death

dates. Choate also added, "I once sent in for his Civil War service record but they had ‘no record.’" Mrs. Reynolds stated May 18,

2000, that "Mrs. Choate [Donald’s widow] told me the marker had been destroyed by bush-hogging. I went to the spot she told me;

only found a bed of iris. The land now belongs to the Choates’ son."

Articles in the 1964 edition of

White County Heritage

seem to indicate that Donald Choate found and reported the burial sites and

even researched the Walker family. According to an article by Mrs. Lloyd Henry in the ’64

Heritage

, Capt. James Walker served in

the War of 1812 and came to White County prior to 1837. His son Crawford Walker, who is buried here, donated the 10-acre plot on

which the City of Searcy was founded. Crawford died of cholera on the steamer Gov. Bent at age 31.

Writing in the 1984 edition of

White County Heritage

, W. Bruce Cook, director of information at Harding University, states that a

post office was established in 1831 on the old Batesville-Little Rock military road at the crossing of Des Arc Creek, in what later

became White County, and Lewis Kirkpatrick (1805-45) was appointed the first postmaster. Kirkpatrick, who came to the area in



1827 from Jackson County, TN, later became the first judge of White County, conducting the inaugural court session May 23, 1836.

Citing a letter from a descendent of Kirkpatrick, Cook says "Relatives believe he is buried in the old Stamps Cemetery near Floyd."

Writing in the White County Historical Society newsletter in the spring of 2004, WCHS member Scott Akridge stated that in the first

White County census, "James Walker owned the most land (nearly 1,000 acres) and had 11 slaves (23 slaves in the 1840 census).

His property was located just south of Floyd in the area where Stamps Cemetery is today. Stamps Cemetery has been further

investigated recently and is much larger than previously thought. I visited this cemetery with Bill Leach in January 2004 and we

agreed that as many as 200 graves are located here. Walker himself is buried in this cemetery. The Walker farm is mentioned by

G.W. Featherstonhaugh in his travels through Arkansas in 1834."

An article about the Stamps stagecoach house was published in the

Arkansas Central Leader

at McCrory in 1942. The author was

Claude Johnson, a charter member of the White County Historical Society who served as president in 1971-72. Claude included this

information: "Although the house is old, it faces a site much older, for the landscape contains a score or more of Indian mounds,

indicating that the red men chose the site as their home also. These mounds are on a slope below the house and spring, and they

cover several acres. In the center of the village stands the large chief mound, overlooking the rest." This was news to Scott

Akridge, who is a former president of the Arkansas Archeological Society. "The description is not impossible," Akridge said, "but

they were more likely natural high spots the Indians chose to live on. They then deposited more refuse over time and enlarged the

'mounds.' We call these house mounds. I have not seen any house mounds out there but agriculture could certainly have pulled

them down. I have never been there when the fields were plowed. If some local persons had collections from the site involved, I

could define the periods of occupation. If the old Stamps place sits on top of an Indian site it would not surprise me since early

settlers often picked sites long occupied before. Where the Stamps house stood is on a natural high spot and the land slopes away

toward creeks in all directions. A neat place since, were the land cleared for agriculture in say the 1850s, you could literally stand

at the house and see for a good distance, thus keeping watch over all the farming operations."

There has been speculation that the Stamps Cemetery and a reported black cemetery nearby may mark the location of the lost

Royal Colony and its "Royal Cemetery" which existed somewhere in this area before the Civil War. Historical Society members

continue to research this enigma of early White County.

Following is a list of known burials in this cemetery.

Kirkpatrick, Lewis – 1805 – 1845 – (Unmarked) – Relatives have stated that he is buried here - Stamps Cemetery

Price, Jackson – March 10, 1846 – January 28, 1888 - Stamps Cemetery

Walker, Capt. James – April 13, 1791 – January 28, 1852 - Stamps Cemetery



Walker, Mary Mariah – April 30, 1798 – March 18, 1852 - Stamps Cemetery

Walker, Nancy Bond – November 8, 1821 – September 19, 1841 - Daughter of James & Mary M.Walker - Stamps Cemetery

Watkins, Mary J. – October 3, 1831 – December 4, 1857 - Wife of Thomas Watkins - Stamps Cemetery

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Legend: Copyright-Aug.23, 2016-Paul V. Isbell-Webmaster:

Most of the cemetery information listed was collected by Leroy “Lee” Blair Former member of the White

County Historical Society Board of Directors. Now working at the White County Historical Society office on

the square in Searcy. WCHS P. O. Box 537 Searcy, Ark. 72145.

If you have any additions or corrections to the burial listing please contact the Historical Society. Phone 501-

278-5010 or Email me at

lblblair74@gmail.com

or wchs1962@gmail.com

I will be posting more burials later. The Searcy Daily Citizen donated all their Micro Film and Ledgers dating

back to 1953. After reviewing them, if I find a death of a person that we do not have I will to add to the

cemetery listings.

There are some graves listed as unmarked that may have had a tombstone set since the listing was made.

I may have missed some graves when I prepared the listing. Some cemeteries are very hard to get an

accurate listing due to how some graves are scattered

The following Abbreviations are used in the listings

.

FM-Funeral home marker DS-Double tombstone TS-Triple tombstone



(Obit)-means that the Historical Society has, or has access to the Obituary for this person.