Watson

Watson Cemetery

Cemetery = Watson Cemetery

Vicinity = Crawfordville

Status = evidently obliterated

Community = white

The veterans' graves registration of 1940-41 gives locating directions:

From Crawfordville Court House go east on U.S. Highway #319 8/10 mile; cemetery 3/10 mile to left (north) of road in field.

There apparently is no testimony available now on the location or appearance of the Watson Cemetery in Crawfordville. Reckonings by members of the historical society from the locating directions given above have been recently tried.

An 8/10 mile travel northeasterly from the courthouse on Shadeville Highway, formerly US 319, indicates a point about where today's Trice Lane strikes that highway. A distance of 3/10 mile northward from there indicates the approximate latitude of Harvey-Pitman Street. Trice Lane being on the east line of Lot 76, Hartsfield Survey, Harvey-Pitman Street goes west into Lot 76. Old records in the courthouse show that Jonathan Watson was an early owner of the entire east half of the lot, amounting to 180 acres; Deed Record 2, p562, and Book A-B, p541, show his disposing of the entirety by 1866. And the veterans' graves registration cited above gives, for another location datum, Lot 76.

Betty Green of the historical society reports some evidence that the cemetery, evidently obliterated now, lies in the vicinity of the county work center on Trice Lane, just over 1/8 mile north of Shadeville Hwy. That facility is in the north extremity of Lot 77, HS, ? against the south line of Lot 76. A 1937 aerial photo shows the east half of Lot 76 as crop fields. But a small dark patch, evidently of a distinguishing vegetation type and only a fraction of an acre, shows in a squarish configuration in the southern extremity of Lot 76, perhaps 50-100 yards off the northwest point of the county work center. The location apparently is on the north flank of today's Dogwood Lane, which runs along the south line of Lot 76, and maybe 75-100 yards east of Raker Lane. The spot is much less than 3/10 mile north of Shadeville Highway, but may have been 1/4 to 3/10 mile by the course of a roadway showing well on the old picture in a northwest slant from today's intersection of that highway and Trice Lane (the opening of the old roadway is still apparent near the intersection).

Members of the historical society in October 2003 walked in and about the location of this interesting image on the 1937 aerial, but found no surface evidence of any graveyard (nor were they able to discern the actual location of the 1937 vegetative cover that produced the image; a succession of land uses since has disturbed the terrain greatly). From that point the land is thickly settled for a way northward in Lot 76.

Historical society members walked around in the largest holdings remaining undeveloped in an area astraddle Harvey-Pitman Street and running westward several hundred yards from Trice Lane ? to the longitude of a cell-phone tower on the north side of Hickory Ave. All or much of this terrain has been worked over in planting and harvesting a pine rowcrop after the days of cropland. Some of the harvested area on the south side of Harvey-Pitman St. is thick with brush and presents low visibility. Nothing suggesting a graveyard was found. The current owners report no knowledge of such a feature.

The veterans' graves registration lists the graves of Civil War veterans Thomas James Watson and William Spears for Watson Cemetery. It gives no year of death for either.

Date of site report narrative - October 2003

Some information taken from Register of Deceased Veterans 1940-41

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