Listed in Arkansas Register of Historic Places on 08/03/16

Summary

The Seminary Cemetery is being nominated to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places under Criterion A, with local significance, as the last surviving site associated with the historic community of Seminary, Arkansas. This site is also being nominated under Criteria Consideration D as a cemetery.

Elaboration

Ouachita County was created in 1842 from northwestern portions of the earlier Union County. The county was named after the Ouachita River, which flows through the area.[1] The town of Camden was selected as the new county seat after its incorporation in 1844. In just a few short years, Camden boasted planned streets and several professionals, including lawyers and doctors, a courthouse, schools, and churches. The area around what would become the farming community of Seminary, Arkansas, was settled as early as the 1840s. A post office was established at the site of the town in 1848 according to an early issue of the The Arkansas True Democrat newspaper of Little Rock. This early paper indicated that a post office had been established at Seminary and the first postmaster was Mr. Allen M. Scott. In the congressional records of 1850, it is noted that a post road was to be established “From Camden, via Buena Vista, Seminary, Taylor, Calhoun and Walnut Creek to Homer, Louisiana.”[2] Official U. S. Post Office Department documentation notes that the post office at Seminary was established in January of 1852 with the appointment of Riley Manning as postmaster. A listing for a “Valuable Farm for Sale” just south of “the Seminary” in the Ouachita Herald newspaper in Camden, Arkansas, in 1856 illustrates the prominence of the community of Seminary in southern Ouachita County as a place that locals would easily recognize. Only a single photo of a commercial structure in Seminary has been found. This c. 1856 photography captures the store of Tom D. Thomson, who was one of the early commercial leaders with a two-story store structure in central Seminary.[3]

Seminary continued to grow throughout the 1860s and 1870s. During the 1850 census, there are 81 families listed in Smackover Township. In 1860, Smackover Township was listed with the post office of Seminary and there were sixty-six dwellings and three-hundred and ninety-seven individuals in the area. The community continued to grow through the 1860s, even through the years of the Civil War. In the 1870 census, the township of Smackover had just over six-hundred residents.

In 1882, the Cotton Belt Railroad completed its rail line in the area and, unfortunately, bypassed the growing community. The town of Stephens was established along the new rail line in 1883. Stephens, Arkansas, became the major commercial town in the area due to the rail line. The community of Seminary was immediately affected and many businesses quickly moved to Stephens. The town quickly declined in population and the post office was officially closed in 1905.

The community of Seminary was named after a female seminary school that was founded in the community during its early years. Locally run, small schools were very common in the area, with various seminaries and academies advertised in surviving issues of the local papers in the mid to late 1800s. Seminaries often referred to schools for girls, while academies referred to schools for boys. There are no existing records for the early history of a school at Seminary, Arkansas. However, by 1875, Professor T. E. Burris was the last teacher at the local school. Mr. Burris also ran a local grist mill and sawmill in the Seminary community. A large, two-story school building still existed in the Seminary area in early 1958. However, the building was later torn down due to extreme deterioration and neglect.[4]

Simon Green was an original settler as well as the Morgans, Pelky, Wesson, Gossett, Watson, Campbell, Hodnett, White, and Autry families to name a few. Many of the original settlers are buried in the old Seminary Cemetery. The town had a school for girls, a grist mill, saw mill, merchants, and blacksmiths. A Masonic lodge was also located in the town. Unfortunately, the cemetery serves as one of the best resources for documentation of the town’s history. Due to the early dissolution of the community, around the turn of the 20^th century, there is a definite lack of historical documentation of the community.

One identified grave in the cemetery, Elizabeth Walker Morgan, is mentioned in the Goodspeed’s History of Southern Arkansas from 1890. Elizabeth Morgan was the mother of Henry P. Morgan, a leading merchant in the town of Stephens, Arkansas. The Morgan family were some of the first settlers of Poinsett County, Arkansas, in 1810. Elizabeth Walker married John H. Morgan in Georgia. The following excerpt is from the Goodspeed’s History of Southern Arkansas and mentions the Morgan and Hodnett families, both of which have members interred in the Seminary Cemetery:

Henry P. Morgan, a leading merchant of Stephens, is a native of Georgia, born in Harris County, on March 10, 1849, and is one of the prominent business men of the county. His father, John H. Morgan, was born in Alabama in 1810, and died in Poinsett County, Arkansas in 1857. He emigrated to the last-named county in 1848, and was one of the very earliest settlers, carrying the first slaves to that county. He located on a farm in the woods, and here passed his last days, filling many local positions of trust. He was married in Georgia to Miss Elizabeth Walker, a native of that State, and of Irish descent, her grandparents being natives of the Emerald Isle. She died in 1873. To Mr. and Mrs. Morgan were born ten children. Henry P. being the youngest in order of birth. The latter was reared in Ouachita County, Arkansas and received but a limited education. He resided with his mother until twenty two years of age, and was then married to Miss Georgia Hodnett, a native of Georgia, born in 1852. To them were born three children: Kate M. (wife of Harvey Edwards), Emmett and Marcus. Mrs. Morgan died in 1878, and about 1880 Mr. Morgan took for his second wife Miss Josephine Hodnett, a sister of his first wife and also a native of Georgia. Four children were born to this union: Harvey, Alva, Elma and John H. Mr. Morgan embarked in the merchandising business at Stephens in 1883, and carries a stock of goods valued at about $4,000. He also buys cotton in connection with his general trade. He is the owner of 1,000 acres of land and also several town lots with buildings which he rents. Mr. Morgan is a member of the K. of P. lodge at Stephens, and is also a K. of H. He is a Democrat in politics, and his first presidential vote was for Seymour. He and wife are members of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, of which his first wife was also a member.[5]

The last remaining structure in the town was the Seminary African Methodist Church. The congregation occupied their own building in 1889, after the building and surrounding land was donated to the local Seminary A.M.E. congregation in November of 1889 by the leaders of the local masonic lodge, the Nevada Lodge No. 40 of the Free & Accepted Masons.[6] The trustees of the church who accepted the transfer of land were listed as Daniel Greene, Gabrielle Banks, Elias Williams, Moses Watson Jr., Samuel A. Hughes, Nathan Hall, and Thomas Green. Daniel Green and Sam Hughes, both African American males, are listed in the 1870 census for the Smackover Township area. The Seminary A.M.E. Church building was moved in 1969 to locate the structure on a plot closer to the newer community of Stephens, with access to electricity and city sewers.

The cemetery was abandoned for new interments during the 1940s. Local residents continued to maintain the cemetery through the 1960s. A local newspaper article in the The Camden News on September 16, 1970, notes that the Seminary Cemetery was becoming very overgrown. A group of local concerned citizens were forming an association in order to try to care for the cemetery. A new road was cleared to the cemetery and the undergrowth was removed. The newspaper story continues to describe many of the monuments that still exist in the cemetery.

Statement of Significance

The Seminary Cemetery is being nominated to the Arkansas Register of Historic Places under Criterion A, with local significance, as the last surviving site associated with the historic community of Seminary, Arkansas. This site is also being nominated under Criteria Consideration D as a cemetery.

Bibliography

Acts and Resolutions Passed at the First Session of the thirty-first congress of the United States; with an appendix. Washington: Gideon & Co., Printers. 1850.

Baker, Russell Pierce. From Memdag to Norsk: A Historical Directory of Arkansas Post Offices 1832-1971. Arkansas Genealogical Society, Hot Springs, AR. 1988.

Biographies & Historical Memoirs of Southern Arkansas. Chicago, IL: Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1890.

Daily Bulletin of Orders Affecting The Postal Service. Vol. XXVI, no. 7799. Post Office Department: Washington, D.C.. 30 September 1905.

McKelvy, Jerry. ed. “Old Seminary Cemetery.” The Sandyland Chronicle. Vol. 7, no. 8. sandyland.nevadea.ar.us. pp. 1-3.

Morrison, Larry A. and Bruce W. Eppinette. Historical Ouachita County: A Photographic Collection. Southern Arkansas University Tech: Camden, AR. 1986.

Poindexter, Kenneth. “Neglected, Forgotten Cemetery All That Remains Today of Historic Old Seminary.” Ouachita County Historic Society Quarterly. Ouachita County Historical Society: Camden, Arkansas. Vol. 19, No. 1, Fall, 1987. pp.16-17.

Ponder, Debbie Fenwick. “Ouachita County.” Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture. Central Arkansas Library System, 4 March 2016. www.encyclopediaofarkansas.net. Accessed 1 June 2016.

“Restoration of Old Cemetery.” The Camden News. Camden, Arkansas. 16 September 1970. p. 11.

United States Census Rolls, 1860, 1870, 1880, 1900.

“Valuable Farm for Sale.” Ouachita Herald. Camden, Arkansas. 2 October 1856.

Veit, Richard Francis and Mark Nonestied. New Jersey Cemeteries and Tombstones: History in the Landscape. New Brunswick, NJ:Rutgers University Press, 2008.

[2] Acts and Resolutions Passed at the First Session of the thirty-first congress of the United States; with an appendix, Washington: Gideon & Co., Printers, 1850. p. 101.

[3] Larry A. Morrrison and Bruce W. Eppinette, Historical Ouachita County: A Photographic Collection, Southern Arkansas University Tech: Camden, AR, 1986. p. 16.

[4] Kenneth Poindexter, “Neglected, Forgotten Cemetery All That Remains Today of Historic Old Seminary,” Ouachita County Historic Society Quarterly, Ouachita County Historical Society: Camden, Arkansas, Vol. 19, No. 1, Fall, 1987. pp.16-17.

[5] Biographies & Historical Memoirs of Southern Arkansas. Chicago, IL: Goodspeed Publishing Co., 1890.

[6] Deed provided by the Ouachita County Circuit Clerk, Deed Book O, page 517.