The Payton Cemetery

The Payton cemetery is found on the properties previously owned and lived on by William Payton, Jr., and his son, Cornelius and his grandson, Richard between 1796 and 1848. William Payton, Junior had two properties; one property was 98 acres located on the Scull Shoal Creek and the second property was 200 acres that bordered this property. It is believed that the Davids Home Church Road is the old dirt road that went to the General Daniels home and being maintained by Cornelius Payton and others living on that road in 1810. Back then, it was customary to bury their deceased family members on their own properties. More than likely this is an abandoned Payton Cemetery and more than likely William Payton, Junior is buried here as well as his brother George Payton and his wife, and others.

This cemetery is listed as Family Cemetery #9 in GMD 1616 in the "Madison County Cemetery Book" complied by the Madison County Heritage Foundation in 1986. It is located on a hill in a wooded area close to the house back porch on 5 acres of private property of what used to be part of Cornelius & William Paytons 300 acres situated on the Broad River. This hill was once cleared of the trees many years ago because all the new tall pine trees (maybe 35 - 50 years old) are planted in many long rows going north and south and are disturbing the cemetery. During my visit there on 4 Nov 2016, I estimated that there could be as many as 30 graves scattered in the woods based on the many field stones and depressions in the graound. As Jerry Evans pointed out below, it is hard to determed the number of graves because of the trees, pine needles on the ground and other brush in the woods, but there are more than the 9 graves mentioned by Dr. Barton. My visit to the cemetery was on a very nice warm sunny afternoon day in the late Fall when Georgia was going through a drought, which made it easy exploring the wooded area and taking photos.

Dr. John Barton, President of the Madison County Heritage Foundation stated that "Cemetery #9 in GMD 1616 appeared to be an older cemetery with stone markers and no tombstones with engraved names at the time that he visited the cemetery location. He recalled that there were 7 to 9 potential stone markers located in close proximity to mobile home on the property. The appearance was most consistent with that of an older family cemetery.

On the Find a Grave (FAG) site, one of the cemetery pictures is an engrave stone marker with the date of 1869, which is located in wooded area. The second picture shows the entrance to the cemetery area. The third picture is of Scull Shoals Creek running through what used to be William Payton's property.

Jerry Evans wrote on 3 October 2015 after he and Frank Powers visited the cemetery: "The cemetery is located on a high point or ridge only a short distance from Lisa's house. There are two apparent grave markers (slate stones) near edge of back yard. The driveway leading to house is very narrow and one lane. It is of fairly recent asphalt and, thus, in very good condition - its steepness minimized to some extent by slight curves. The road from highway 172 was being graded and a base for asphalt was being put down when we arrived." "We were unable to find any engraved markers except for one near edge of lawn that had what appeared to be "1869" etched on it. It appeared there may have been quite a few more strewn through the woods that had been "disturbed" by pine tree growth and a former logging road. Its very hard to determine which are graves and which are merely rocks that had been cast aside by logging and tree growth. It would be quite a time-consuming undertaking to establish "a cemetery" from this maze."

In comparison with the Moses Payton Cemetery in Elbert County, all graves were marked with large field sandstones as headstones and smaller field sandstones as footstones, except for the two engraved headstones. However, in this Payton Cemetery, fieldstones and Slate stones were used to mark the graves.

Directions to the cemetery: Coming from Colbert headed towards Bowman, turn left off highway 172 onto David Church road. After you go over Scull Shoals Creek Bridge (very short bridge – drive slow so you don't miss it) and then about a mile or so down the road you should start looking on the left side for 2780 Davids Home Church Road where you need to turn left to go up the hill.

This cemetery can found on Findagrave site by typing the following URL site address:
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=cr&GRid=98948803&CRid=2549937&.