The word “cemetery” often has the power to conjure ghostly imagery and cause fearful goose bumps to pop up on one’s arms.
However, they are more than just a spooky locale to host a ghost story reading.
Buried inside each cemetery are the people who founded towns, wrote laws, discovered modern medicinal treatments and raised families.
City Cemetery in Poplarville is no exception. Many members of the area’s most recognizable families are buried inside the more than 100-year-old cemetery.
Retired college professor and administrator John Grant has always had an interest in history. Recently, he presented a program about cemeteries in Poplarville to the Poplarville Historical Preservation Society.
“My wife was asked to chair a committee looking at local cemeteries,” he said. “And I like to work the camera so I went along.”
City Cemetery is located at 200 North Jackson St.
The oldest burial date Grant has found is from 1878, he said.
Poplarville was incorporated sometime in the 1880s, Grant said. There was a settlement in the area for a number of years prior to incorporation, he added.
City Cemetery is owned and maintained by the City of Poplarville.
While walking through the cemetery, people will recognize many of the area’s most notable names including Moody, Smith, Wheat, Rouse, Newton, Greer, Stewart and Strahan.
“Part of the land for the cemetery was given by Andrew Smith, son of “Poplar” Jim Smith, Poplarville’s namesake,” Grant said. “Both are buried in City Cemetery.”
Grant has also taken an interest in studying more of the city’s burial grounds, such as one just north of town and another near Ford’s Creek Church.
“There are just two graves just north of town,” he said. “It’s two little boys who died around the mid-20th century.”
Next door to Ford’s Creek Church, there is a home with a single marked grave in the front yard, Grant said.
According to the local story, during the 1920s a young woman from Orvisburg, a former sawmill town, became ill, Grant said.
“Her husband was trying to take her to Franklinton and needed to cross the river,” Grant said. “However, the river was up and the ferry was not operating.”
The people that lived in the home invited the couple into their home where she died, Grant said. She was buried in their yard.
On a personal note, Grant said he finds cemeteries fascinating.
“The monuments and the comments left on them are the last impression someone makes when they leave this Earth,” Grant said.