Evergreen Cemetery is over 150 years old and located in the hills of Carroll County
In 1834, Carroll County was carved out of ancestral Choctaw land and opened up for settlement by dozens of families eager to start their lives over on the edge of the vast Mississippi Delta. Some found enormous wealth and built elaborate homes to reflect that success; others scraped by on small farms or held down jobs in the stores around the courthouse square, the schools, the mills or on hardscrabble farms. But all contributed to the growth of Carrollton and North Carrollton and the legacy and legends of this corner of America, and hundreds of those early settlers and their descendants lie buried in one of Mississippi’s most historic and scenic spots, Evergreen Cemetery.
G.W.H. Brown donated the original acreage for Evergreen in the 1850s and the oldest gravestones reflect the harsh realities of mid-19th century Mississippi. Few Carrolltonians lived what we would now consider long lives and so many children were gone before their first birthday. Epidemics of yellow fever are marked by clusters of burials in 1850, 1878 and 1898. The Civil War, World War I, World War II and other conflicts left their mark as well, with some native sons lost in combat and others who struggled for decades with lingering injuries, seen and unseen. As Carrollton and North Carrollton grew, so did Evergreen, its original carriage paths paved and an ornate iron archway built to welcome those being memorialized and those who come to remember.
The long and storied history of Carroll County is written here, carved into the headstones and reflected in the log books of the Carrollton Evergreen Cemetery Association, owners of this sacred ground since 1907. Some names are instantly recognizable to today’s visitors, carrying the lineage of families who still live in Carrollton and the surrounding communities. Some can be found in Mississippi History books, such as U.S. Senators J.Z. George and Hernando DeSoto Money. Many are long forgotten, their descendants scattered and their graves tended through the dedication of the Cemetery Association members. Some lived their entire lives in Carroll County; others chose to return here for their permanent rest because Carroll County is the special place that called to them over time and distance. All are cherished and honored and part of the legacy of Evergreen Cemetery.
Six existing graves in Evergreen date back to the 1850s, according to their headstones. The oldest is that of Christopher Loving, who died on September 30, 1855, of yellow fever. In another lot are three graves belonging to the children of William and E.A. Stansbury. Eight-year-old Tommy–“Our Tommy,” his headstone reads–died on June 14, 1857. Sixteen months later, the Stansburys lost two other children in one day, October 8, 1858–Willie, who was nine months and four days old, and Ellie Norris, who was twenty months and eight days old. Not far away is the grave of little William Sturdivant, son of B.H. and E.R. Sturdivant, who was almost three when he passed away on July 15, 1857. The sixth pre-Civil War stone is that of Louis Moore, who was twenty-seven years old when he died on August 3, 1859.
At some point, a Dr. William Sturdivant, perhaps a relative of B.H. Sturdivant mentioned above, acquired the cemetery property, and on February 3, 1892, his heirs deeded it to Grace Episcopal Church of Carrollton. Then in 1907, the church granted ownership of the land to the newly formed Carrollton Evergreen Cemetery Association, which has retained and maintained the property ever since.
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Evergreen Cemetery 