GOLIGHTLY
MOUNDS
CEMETERY
(Destroyed)
Turrell,
Sanders,
One of the Families Buried at Golightly Mounds
Reconstructed
Burials at Golightly Mounds
History
of Lambethville by Margaret Woolfolk
EVENING
TIMES -
Farm
plow leveled remote burial mound
By Michael Kelley, Staff Reporter
TURRELL,
She took the
graveled option at a fork in the road, wheeled up onto the
"That's
where it was," she said, pointing into a golden field of
Mrs. Hicks, a
Turrell native who lives outside
Known to state
archeologists as Site No. 3CT27, it was also the final resting place for other
area farmers who began using what was once a wooded Indian Mound for a white
man's cemetery in the 19th century.
But there are
no headstones to mark it any more, and no trees -- just a field of grain being
cultivated on a farm owned by the heirs of Memphian Don Wiener.
Weiner, who
died in 1982, was an enterprising Obioan who moved to
He had
extensive cotton, soybean and grain farming interests in
On the
Golightly property was the remains of an Indian village measuring 101-by-82
meters, according to Dr. Dan Morse, regional archeologist for the Arkansas
Archeological Survey.
Three mounds
on the site included one that bore the graves of 300 to 400 whites, he said.
According to a
1983 observation by a surveyor for a private contracting firm, Dr. Morse said,
the site had been converted to farmland sometime since 1978.
The three
mounds had measured 60 to 80 feet in diameter, rising three or four feet above
the floodplain in a village occupied by Indians from the First to the 14th
Century.
"We
really don't know much about the site," he said. "It's not been investigated because of
its function as a contemporary cemetery."
The headstones
of the white cemetery had been removed by the time the observations were made
in 1983, he said.
"The
Mr. Hicks said
until recently she has not visited the site since 1979, but her
great-grandparents on both sides are buried there--the Brizendines and the
Mitchussons.
"I don't
remember the Mitchussons," she said, "but I do remember Grandpa
Brizendine, who died in 1936. He stayed
with us off and on."
The last person
to be buried there was Peggy Sue Brizendine, who died in 1948, said Mrs. Hicks,
who was her cousin. "They stopped
burying people there because that was as many people as they could plant in
it."
The Indians
who built the mounds lived in tribal societies, with religious and political
leadership. They traded goods with
tribes that lived as far away as what is now
Some of the
Indian mounds in
Many of the
mounds have been destroyed, legally, by farming, Dr. Dye said. But in recent years, some
states have tried to halt destruction of Indian burial sites by interpreting
their state laws against grave destruction to encompass unmarked Indian graves
as well as modern white graves.
Mrs. Hicks
said she and other relatives who discovered the cemetery destruction during a
family reunion last month tried without success to convince Crittenden County
authorities to prosecute the Wieners under Arkansas Statute 41-1985, which
makes it a misdemeanor to "disturb, damage or carry away" a cemetery
marker.
She said they
also checked with a lawyer, who said he could handle a civil suit if they put up
$3,000. "I told him we didn't have
that kind of money. We weren't the ones
who broke the law."
"I have
personally never seen the cemetery in question," said Lee Wiener, current
manager of the farm.
There is
"a mound or two" in the field, he said, but "nothing has been
leveled to my knowledge, at all...I've never had any knowledge of any cemetery
we've unearthed, or something like that.
I've never seen any headstones or marker, of whatever."
Dino Pirani,
who managed the farm before Wiener took over, said the site was cultivated in
the late '70's, and he didn't know that it included a modern cemetery.
I always
though it was just some Indian mounds," he said. "It was a grown up area, definitely less
than an acre."
He said there
was no road leading to the site, and he had never seen anything done to the
site that resembled a cemetery maintenance.
"If there
were any headstones, I never saw them.
But I never really walked into the area because it was all in
brambles. It was not actually wood, just
what I call brush -- eight, 10, 12, maybe 15 feet tall."
Lee Wiener
said he hoped to meet with Mrs. Hicks to work out a solution to the problem.
"You
don't want to offend somebody," he said.
"I don't anyway. Life's too
short."
COMMERCIAL
APPEAL -
TRI-STATE
Farming
ruined graves, suit says
Damages
of $750,000 being sought
By Tom Bailey Jr., Staff Reporter
TURRELL,
PACCO Inc., which is headquartered in
PACCO and two
of its officials also named as defendant, Russell and Lee Wiener, deny all the
allegations in a response they filed in Circuit Court.
Juanita M.
Nelson, granddaughter of Annie Laura and James Brizendine who are buried in the
cemetery, and her husband, Donald L. Nelson, filed the suit in Crittenden
County Circuit Court against PACCO and its officials, Russell Wiener and Lee
Wiener. The Nelsons live in
The suit also
charges that PACCO built a center pivot irrigation system that crosses over the
graves as it revolves around and waters the field. The Nelsons claim the farming company removed
tombstones and markers on graves.
The nelsons
asked the court to order PACCO and the Wieners to restore the cemetery by
replacing tombstones and markers and by protecting it with some type of
structure around it.
The Nelsons,
whose lawyer, David Carruth of Clarendon, filed the lawsuit Feb. 4, asking for
$750,000 in punitive damages for the outrageous, intentional and malicious
actions."
The defendants
asked the court to dismiss the suit because the three-year stature of
limitations has run out. The suit also
should be thrown out because the Nelsons failed to state a cause of action
against Russell and Lee Wiener personally, their answer states.
The
Helen Hicks of
Marion, a niece of Mrs. Nelson's, said the family discovered the cemetery had
been destroyed during a family reunion in 1985.
Lee Wiener
told a reporter in 1985 that he was never aware of any cemetery in PACCO's
fields.
~~ Added Notes ~~
Handwritten information added to
newspaper articles retained at
Woolfolk
Library,
Summer
1988 - Judge refused to hear case.
August
1989 - Another avenue has opened up,
letters have been written. --JMN
1996 - It is believed by Margaret Woolfolk that this
cemetery, "
(Note: All indications
are that this case went no further)
2004
– Further Note: Information was
submitted to me anonymously that employees were told to dig a hole and bury the
tombstones. A concrete slab was then poured and a tractor shop erected on the
site where the tombstones were buried. I
have no proof or evidence to substantiate these allegations. ------ Debbie Yates
Cemeteries
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