During the June 2020 protests following the killing of George Floyd, certain militant threats were leveled toward the Fordyce Police Department and City Hall, where the department was housed.
This potential danger to the building inspired important documents to be hastily stored within the facility’s fire-resistant vault. In the process of relocating municipal records, a heavy, 136-year-old, leather-bound ledger book titled, “Oakland Cemetery” was found amongst the stacks of files and boxes. Oakland is now a 40-acre burial ground near the northeast corner of the town that was first established in the mid-1880s.
On the first several pages of the ledger are a list of 52 initial burials. Each individual’s name, age, date of death, cause of demise and native state of origin are noted.
The first burial is dated May 5, 1886. This commitment to the earth followed soon after the incorporation of Fordyce as a city on April 8, 1884.
The other 51 entries proceed in chronological order through Sept. 1, 1906. After that, no further accounting of such commitments appears within the lined, yellowed pages of the antiquated text.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
Scrutiny of the fatal list in comparison to existing headstones in historic Oakland burial ground proves only three of the 52 names currently appear on any marker. It would seem that those listed were indigent people, many of whom are shown to be in transit through the newborn town grown up beside the fresh laid Cotton Belt and Rock Island railroad tracks.
Discovery of the nearly century-and-a-half-old ledger has happily, if unexpectedly, given some clue as to the life and times of those long forgotten. As a result, those long lost names and persons have now been memorialized by a large, new plaque placed adjacent to the unknown burials. The memorial is thanks to the efforts of the Fordyce Cemetery Association, Jimmi Ann Raney, who donated the metal frame, and Phillip Todd, who created the sign.
It is said as long as someone remembers and speaks your name, you still exist in this world. Visitors to historic Oakland Cemetery may now help recall early settlers of the community by reading and reciting those listed next to their final resting place.
The gates to Oakland Cemetery in Fordyce are pictured. (Special to The Commercial/Richard Ledbetter)