LAWSON ORCHARD CEMETERY *
Lawson Orchard Cemetery
Baxter County, Arkansas

The first child of John and Matilda DeWitt Lawson was born and died in 1905. The family buried him in the family orchard at Hopewell, Arkansas. Their fifth child, a daughter, died at birth in 1910, and she was buried alongside her brother. Not long after that, the family started burying their deceased family members on the nearby Ruff Lawson farm in a "new" Lawson Cemetery. No further burials were made at the family orchard site.

The gravesites of the two infants are very visible each spring. The family had outlined the graves with jonquils and each spring the jonquils emerge and bloom showing the location of the two graves. The location is in a pasture next to the Hopewell Hollow Road on the Roger Pitchford farm.

John and Matilda Dewitt Lawson lived on this farm for many years and referred to it as the Davis Place.

(Information about the the Lawson Orchard Cemetery and the two burials there was supplied by Annamae Lawson Freeman. Pictures of the cemetery and two gravesites were taken by Linda Page Bradbury in March 2004.)