Cemetery of Poinsett Co.

Marked Tree Cemetery

1999-2007, inventoried by Harry E. Vredingburgh

On August 12, 1910, the city of Marked Tree purchased four acres of ground from the Chapman and Dewey Lumber Company for $300 to be used as a cemetery. This was located across the St. Francis River Bridge about a mile west of town. The first person to be buried there was Austin Reece of Erin, TN, a young man who was working out his fine for drunkenness by cutting the brush off the acreage.

Austin Reece was a 22-year-old bricklayer working on the two-story brick building next to the subway, which was torn down in 1980 (Rea Hotel). As a trusty he meant to sleep on the sandy place at the end of the bridge that hot August night, but, when he got there, he found his buddies in a crap game. In the argument that ensued, they killed him and threw him in the river. Marshall C.D. Holdman called his parents, but they could not respond so his buddies made a pine box and buried him in the cemetery.

The second person to be buried in the cemetery was Dr. J.A. Forgus, who was the mayor of Marked Tree from 1908 to 1911, and was also a practicing physician with his office in the Crescent Drugstore.


DIRECTIONS: Approaching Marked Tree from Trumann on Hywy 63, turn right at the Marked Tree exit. At the stop sign turn right on Hywy 75 south. The Marked Tree Cemetery is on the right side of the hywy.


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