Seven Star Cemetery AKA Hawkins Cemetery

       


Location: This cemetery is 7-8 miles NW of Washburn. About 1-2 miles south of the intersection of 1010 and 2200 and NE of 1010. It is on land owned by Donnie Smith in 1999. There are two houses on the land, one is NW of the other. The cemetery is located up the hill about 1/4 of a mile, behind the NW house.

From Hwy 90, turn on UU Hwy. The pavement will end, keep going until you reach the Smith farm. Maybe a couple of miles.

One stone found, that of David A. Boggess, born abt. 1859, died Nov. 8, 1881, aged 22 years.

Photos by Dane Martin and Gerald Haddock


Dane Martin on left and Dr. Gerald Haddock on right





Donna Cooper's Note: Since this was written Gerald Haddock has gone to a nursing home and is no longer able to do research. This story and these photos were submitted in 2006 before Dane Martin died and before Gerald declined to poor health.

BARRY COUNTY, MISSOURI BURIALS, by: Gerald Haddock

This project began with the concern which Charles Haddock, Jr. had about keeping good records at New Site Church, founded in 1848, in the Walnut Grove district southwest of Monett in Barry County. New Site Church still has the original church minutes that he wrote by hand to preserve what he could of the details of the church's history in its early years.

My parents, Hugh and Orpha Haddock, contributed to the record when the published a family genealogy book, Legends of the Haddock Family, in 1976. They made several trips from their home in Grants Pass, Oregon, to the 1960's and early 70's visiting Haddock family members and related kin, compiling information about the extended family. Before they died in 1986 they gave me the remaining copies of the book and charged me with the responsibility of distributing them to the extended Haddock family and other interested persons.

Mother's family, Marion Vaughan and descendants, also have a long history in Barry County. Shortly after the Civil war he took a veteran's grant of the Bear Wallow Farm at Cross Hollows on Flat Creek, northeast of Cassville. Janice Treat Vaughan issued a private printing of The Vaughan Family in 2002.

In the summer of 1984 my brother Harold and I drove our parents from Oregon to Barry and Newton Counties. We spent several weeks visiting family members, distributing copies of Legends of the Haddock Family, and in the course of events Harold and I learned much about family history. By 1986 most family members and friends that they remembered from their youth were dead and buried, so that entailed visits to many cemeteries. We were distressed to find many untended and in a sad state of disrepair. Even finding them was difficult. Harold and I had never lived in Barry County, and my parents' memories were obscured by more than 50 years of living out of the county. Through the years even the roads have been moved so to get to many cemeteries it was necessary to find the back road where they were, or even hike across fields where the road didn't go there anymore.

I resolved to do something to document cemetery locations, thus began the map I have been working to produce for several years. Harold's contribution to the effort is the addition of GPS data to document precise locations. His Senior Thesis at the U.S. Naval Academy in 1956 was about the concept of establishing an earth satellite system to provide radio signal location technology for determining exact locations on the face of the earth. That thesis was impounded and he never saw it again. It seems he had chosen a subject that already existed in the concept phase of military development even before the first satellites were in orbit. In 1956 that was "TOP SECRET" stuff. When GPS became publicly available he insisted that I purchase the instrument and use it for documentation of cemetery locations.

The compiled map shows cemetery locations by position on the map; by the traditional Land Office system of Section, Township and Range; and by GPS coordinates. More than 250 cemeteries are shown over an area extending from Berryville, AR at the SE corner of the map, to Neosho at the NW corner. Barry County alone has more than 130 cemeteries, and there are obscure references to about 30 more that I still have not managed to locate.

Recently I have begun recording from whatever sources I can find the names of persons buried in the Barry County cemeteries. This information is being entered into the genealogy program, The Master Genealogist, in genealogical format so it will be much more than just a listing of names. Where it can be determined, genealogic relationships are also entered.

I have no idea how many entries there will eventually be. Already a list of persons buried in the cemeteries so far recorded can be printed in hard copy. The plan is to provide such a list for every Barry County cemetery to put into hard copy book form as well as electronic data base. Thus the project has turned into much more than giving location of the cemetery.

My wife, Faith, has asked me why I'm doing all this, and as I try to find answer I think of Charles Haddock's concern that good records be kept, of Hugh and Orpha Haddock's charge to me to distribute the Haddock information in Legends of the Haddock Family, and then I come to the commandment in the Bible, "Honor your father and your mother." Remembering those who have gone before us is essential to honoring them.