To request a copy of this photo for your own personal use, please contact our state coordinator. If you are not a family member or the original photographer — please refrain from copying or distributing this photo to other websites.
Thank you for visiting the Arkansas Gravestone Photo Project. On this site you can upload gravestone photos, locate ancestors and perform genealogy research. If you have a relative buried in Arkansas, we encourage you to upload a digital image using our Submit a Photo page. Contributing to this genealogy archive helps family historians and genealogy researchers locate their relatives and complete their family tree.
Submitted: 11/10/08 • Approved: 1/30/20 • Last Updated: 2/2/20 • R98518-G0-S3
Burnt School House
A view of the building in the Burnt House Cemetery with the cemetery surrounding it when the Dogwood were in full bloom.
(Photo courtesy of Joyce Lantz Havner)
History of the Burnt School House Cemetery by Max Parnell
The Burnt School House Cemetery is on the south side of Baxter County Road 112 about a quarter of a mile west of Arkansas Highway 341 (Push Mountain Road). It is less than a mile west of Lone Rock. The Ozark National Forest surrounds the cemetery.
The cemetery has gone by the name of Burnt School House Cemetery for many years. Apparently, a school building was originally at the site, and it burned at some point. No one is certain when the school burned or what school was located there. It is highly probably that it was the Cockrum School because there once was a Cockrum district in the area south of White River, and there once were a number of Cockrum families in the area. A news item in the February 9, 1906, issue of The Baxter Bulletin tells of the burial of Claude Hudson at the Burnt School House Cemetery. Obviously, the school building had burned prior to 1906, and quite probably in the 1800's. Around 1921, a small building was built on the cemetery grounds to serve as a church and a place to hold funerals. School was never held in this building which still stands and is inside the cemetery fence. Several graves are within a few feet of the building.
Mary Ann Messick, in her History of Baxter County, stated that "It has been said that more men who died with their boots on are buried at Burnt Schoolhouse, than any other two cemeteries in the county." The only man from Baxter County to be put to death in the electric chair is buried there.
The oldest marked grave is Oliver H. Perry, born December 13, 1820, and died October 28, 1871. It is possible that there are older graves than 1871, since much of the older part of the cemetery had numerous graves that were marked with only a rock, and no identification.
In recent years, a cemetery organization has undertaken a renovation of the cemetery, church building, and grounds. They have expanded the cemetery by obtaining land from the Forest Service adjoining the cemetery on the east. The additional land has been cleared, and a roadway has been made through it. Among other items in the renovation, the committee has been placing small granite markers at many of the graves that had not previously been marked. A portable aluminum pavilion has been moved adjacent to the south end of the church building, and a permanent pavilion has been constructed west of the church building.
Contributed on 11/10/08 by maxparnell
Email This Contributor
Suggest a Correction
Record #: 98518