--photo by Leroy Blair, 2000

Old Dogwood Cemetery

Griffithville, Arkansas

• List updated March 10, 2004
• Legal description: NW, SE, NE, Sect.5, T5N, R6W
• Earliest listed grave: December 25, 1860/Zada Tate
• Last listed grave: Active
  
• GPS Listing: (link)
• Arkansas Archeological Survey site #3WH0638  

Old Dogwood Cemetery is located about five miles south of Griffithville. This historic site was originally listed July 1963 by Mrs. Lloyd Henry and John Griffin of the White County Historical Society and published in the organization’s White County Heritage history for 1971. The cemetery records were updated March 18, 2000, by Historical Society member Tommy H. Treadway, then again October 18, 2000, by WCHS member Leroy Blair. Henry and Griffin had described the old cemetery, "which lies along an old fencerow," as "well kept and still used some for present day burials." Thirty-seven years later, Treadway reported "the cemetery is being mowed and maintained in fair condition."

Notable among the tombstones are the number of Civil War veterans, from both the North and the South, who are buried here. In Henry and Griffin’s footnotes they stated "There are 33 Civil War veterans’ graves marked in this small cemetery and credit for this goes to John Lester Collinsworth who worked on this project for many years… Mr. Collinsworth has died since this listing and is buried in this cemetery." An article on Griffithville published by the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette December 26, 1999, stated that the soldiers who were buried here during the Civil War came from a nearby Confederate hospital at a site later known as Egbert, and that Collinsworth figured out where they were buried and got markers from the U.S. government in the 1930s. In Blair’s report he speculates on this area with the following comments: "There is a large circular mound near the center of the cemetery that has a large rock erected on top. Could this be a mass grave from the Civil War? I have seen a mass grave in Pennsylvania and it looked just like this mound." The Civil War markers do not contain birth or death dates. Blair was unable to find the following graves which were listed in the original report: Ida Branch, F.J. Hood, J.W. Pence, R.E. Pence, Z.W. Tate, Sgt. J.W. Williams.

Treadway’s report included the following: "There are several headstones that are loose on their base and in need of being re-cemented to base. There are several headstones that are broken into two or three pieces, somer of the dates can still be assembled and read. However, through time these will become lost if not repaired." He said several gravesites that were marked only with simple rocks or stones. Here are Treadway’s directions to Old Dogwood Cemetery: From the junction of Highways 11 and 385 in Griffithville, travel south on McDoniel Road two miles to Fletcher Ellis Road and turn right. Continue on Fletcher Ellis Road (about half a mile) until reaching Dogwood Church Road then measure three-tenths of a mile to a single house on the left. Turn left onto this road, which runs along the west side of the yard, and travel approximately one-quarter mile to the cemetery.

If you have information on any of the Civil War veterans that are buried here, or have any other information on Old Dogwood Cemetery, please contact the White County Historical Society, P.O. Box 537, Searcy, AR 72145.

(Also, see GRIFFIN CEMETERY and WHITE OAK CEMETERY.)

The number in parenthesis refers to the position on the 1963 listing, which was not alphabetized.