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: 4/1/12 • Approved: 6/4/12 • Last Updated: 8/11/12 • R670059-G0-S3
Charles Burton "Black" Saunders
February 2, 1863 - October 29, 1952
Nationally Known Gun Collector and Marksman
Colonel Charles Burton "Buck" Saunders won hundreds of shooting matches, including the World Championship for Pistol Shooting, the Renette Prize Paris in 1910, and toured the country with Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. At the age of 75, he won the Southwestern Missouri Pistol Shooting Competition. He traveled the world collecting antiques and firearms.
Charles was born near Greenville, Hunt County, Texas. His parents were Levi B. and Martha (Sherrod) Saunders. The family had moved from Fayetteville, Arkansas to Greenville, Texas, where Charles as born, and Civil War unrest forced the family to return to Fayetteville when Charles was just two, and later moved to Berryville so their children could attend the Berryville Male and Female Academy. In the 1870 census, when Charles was just seven years old, he is listed as "Buck" - a nickname he received as a local sharpshooter at a young age. According to legend, young Saunders developed an early knack for shooting with an old muzzle-loading rifle, and as a teen bagged many deer in the hills abounding around Berryville.
His father had a skin disease that caused extensive inflammation, and came to the springs at the urging of Dr. Alvah Jackson. Obtaining relief from his condition he began spreading for word. Charles is credited with naming the place Eureka (Eureka Springs, Arkansas).
While touring with Buffalo Bill Cody's Wild West Show, he put on shooting exhibitions with the famous lady sharpshooter, Annie Oakley. He later headed West to seek his fortune. He did quite well in mining and real estate and took three lengthy trips around the world, always adding to his collection.
About 1906 he married Mrs. Gertrude (Smith) Bowers, a native of Baltimore, Maryland. They were living in Redlands, San Bernardino County, California in 1910. Mrs. Saunders died in 1911, five years after marrying the adventurous Saunders, but not before the two had completed a tour around the world. In 1919, at the age of 58, Saunders, by then a courtly gentleman of long coat, white hair, mustache and goatee, moved back to his early home of Berryville. He filled his home with mementos of his world travels and his vast collection of guns.
In 1936 the residents of Berryville, with an assist from Governor Junius Marion Futrell, honored Saunders on his 73rd birthday. The Governor commissioned Saunders a "Colonel" in the reserve militia of Arkansas.
Mr. Saunders died at the age of 89, of a heart attack at a hospital in Hot Springs, after having been in ill health for several months. He willed his valuable collections, plus money and land for what became the Berryville's Saunders Museum, which has celebrated over fifty years in operation.
Bio by Mary Hunter
Sources [accessed June 2012]:
Northwest Arkansas Times - Wednesday, July 27, 1966, Fayetteville, Arkansas
http://www.carrollconews.com/story/1388524.html
Hope Star - Saturday, August 05, 1972, Hope, Arkansas
http://www.berryville.com/museum.html
http://www.ancestry.com
Contributed on 4/1/12 by camble121647
Email This Contributor
Suggest a Correction
Record #: 670059