By: Lydia Crawley
The Parsons Advocate
A Tucker County work crew has been cleaning and trimming the site of the old Tucker County Farm Cemetery, also known as the Poor Farm Cemetery, at Camp Kidd. Joe Long updated the County Commissioners on the progress of the project during the Commission’s meeting.
Tucker County Commissioner Mike Rosenau requested an update on the progress of the cleanup at the site. “If you could give the Commission an update on the cemetery on Camp Kidd,” Rosenau said.
Long said he had some staff attend to the cemetery. “He cleaned up that cemetery from where it used to be the County Poor Farm where some people had died,” Long said.
Rosenau said that the name of the site has changed over the years, but it is still a part of Tucker County History. “Where I was raised it was called the Poor Farm,” Rosenau said. “But now, I’m sure it’s not politically correct, so it’s the County Farm and so whatever the case may be, it’s a part of our history in Tucker County.”
According to Rosenau, the Commission only became aware of the site a couple of years ago. “And when the Commission was made aware a couple of years ago, that there’s a cemetery there,” Rosenau said. “It had just overgrown with briars and everything, but you could still see the indentations of the graves.”
Rosenau said that the Commission could not let anyone be forgotten. “So, there were people that had just been forgotten,” Rosenau said. “So, we the Commission decided we can’t just let people be forgotten in our community. Like they didn’t even exist.”
Plans for preservation of the site, according to Rosenau, include reusing wrought iron fencing from the old jail to surround the site. “So what we’re doing right now is, we’re clearing the area of debris, leaving the trees to make a serene place – we’re trying to – and our long-term goal is we have fencing left from our old Jail House, that wrought iron fencing the older people in our community remember it, so we want to incorporate a fence of some kind around that cemetery,” Rosenau said.
According to Rosenau, the County has contacted a company to survey the site and determine the number of burials. “We contacted…we are actually waiting on a phone call back, to determine how many people are buried there,” Rosenau said. “A company that does that. They done throughout the county in other cemeteries. To ensure that we incorporate the whole lot.”
Initial estimates of the graves, according to Rosenau, are between 20 and 30 burials. “I’m telling you, just looking at the indentations down there in the graves, there’s 20 to 30 people buried there at least,” Rosenau said.
Rosenau said the Commission appreciated the effort the work crew put into the site. “So, I looked down there the other day after they had cleaned it off,” Rosenau said. “And they hadn’t dressed up the sides or anything yet, but honest to golly, it looks like a different place. I was proud. The view that we have from that cemetery in that little knoll, I was just proud of the work that they done down there.”
The next meeting of the Tucker County Commission will be held September 27th at 6 p.m. at the Tucker County Courthouse Old Courtroom in Parsons.
