Buckner cemetery was registered May 13, 1879, in the
recorder’s office of Montgomery County as the Pleasant Grove
Cemetery, but is known
locally as the Buckner Cemetery. On
November 6, 1876 Jackson Buckner gave an acre of ground to be used as a
cemetery. The cemetery is
located three miles north of Wales and three-fourths of a mile west.
The name Pleasant Grove was chosen because of the big grove of Walnut
trees, which surrounded the cemetery.
The trees were sold to the United States Army in 1917 to be used
for the butts of rifles in World War I.
Mr. Buckner also gave the
acre immediately west of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church to be used
as a building site for their church. The congregation
raised $1,400.00 for that purpose, but in 1879 the church was built
three miles north at Wheeler Grove. This church was struck by lightning and burned to the ground.
There were 25 burials in Buckner cemetery before it became an official
cemetery. The first burial
was William Thompson, brother of Elizabeth Conner, in 1852.
This was one of the first four burials in Montgomery County that
year.
There have been four burials from 1930-1990.
In 1930, a farmer mowed the cemetery for hay and piled up some of
the stones. Until 1990, there have been 108 burials which
included 22 infants [two sets of twins], 18 children under age 16,
65 adults and an unknown number of new born babies. In 1990, a group of men cleaned up the cemetery, cut dead trees, trimmed
the brush, reset and straightened the stones, repaired the fence and
installed a flag pole and bulletin board. |