This is the burial ground of Rowland Q. Roberts, his wife, Sarah (Smith) Roberts, and a number of their descendants. It is the same cemetery shown as Roberts Cemetery #2 in the "Dillon County Cemetery Book". This current survey was done 21 February 2015 by Jo Church Dickerson specifically for posting to Findagrave, and includes every marker found here on that date. Photographs for each marker are included.

Directions: From Smithboro, at the intersection of Highways SC 917 and SC 41A, go north on 917 toward Latta for exactly two miles. Turn right onto Royal Place (dirt road), just past the large house at the crest of the hill - that is the old Roberts home. Follow the curve around to the right; the cemetery is in the field on the left, 3/10s mile from the highway and directly behind the house. (This is about 8 miles south of Latta.)

There are three other Roberts family cemeteries nearby. It would be very helpful and avoid errors and confusion - to family members and to researchers - for these other Roberts graveyards to be carefully identified on Findagrave with their cemetery names, alternate names, descriptions, and locations.

There are three distinct rows of graves in the cemetery, as shown in some of the photographs. All markers are listed below from right to left:

First row - six markers: Rowland Q.; his wife Mary; their son Stephen & his wife Kate Edwards; Stephen's daughter Pernina (Roberts) Reynolds; Stephen's daughter Ileen; Stephen's son Edward Burke and his wife, Lucile; there is a space between the markers of Rowland and his wife, Mary, but it is not known who might be buried there.

Second row - only two markers: Infant son of Rowland's son, Giles S.; Edward Burke, Jr. & his wife, Marylyn (most recent marker). There are several spaces with no markers between the infant and the double marker.

Third (back) row - four markers: Oma Eliza, daughter of Rowland's son, Samuel R.; Samuel Rembert, son of Rowland's son, Samuel R.; Rowland's son Samuel R.; Samuel R.'s wife, Susan Zilphia Edwards. There are spaces with no markers at each end of this row.

Rowland and Mary had two sons who are not buried in this cemetery; their son Roger R. Roberts is buried at Hopewell Cemetery in Fork, and their son Giles S. Roberts is buried at Magnolia Cemetery in Latta.

The Rowland Q. Roberts home and graveyard were included in the 2002 Annual tour of the Pee Dee Chapter, South Carolina Genealogical Society. The following description is from the Tour Notes by tour guide, Jo Church Dickerson, as published in the July-August 2002 issue of the chapter newsletter, the "Pee Dee Queue":

Rowland Q. Roberts Home and Graveyard

Rowland Q. Roberts (1820-1895) was a son of Reading Roberts and Penelope Dawson. He married Mary Smith, daughter of Samuel Smith and Sarah Hays. The house is said to have been built c1860 on land given to Rowland by his father. This seems to be part of the same 700 acre tract sold in 1834 by Arvin Moody to Redding Roberts, originally granted to Benjamin Harrelson and to Enos Tart. The house has many notable architectural features; such as the Barbadian style freestanding front columns. Owned and strikingly renovated by John and Linda Chovan, this was the family home of Edward Roberts, husband of past Chapter member Marylyn Roberts. Rowland and family members are buried in the family graveyard, in the field between the house and Buck Swamp. (See The Roberts Family History by Marylyn M. Roberts, 1983, available in the Pee Dee Chapter Archives at the Marion County Archives in Marion, S.C.)

Marylyn M. Roberts whose husband, Edward Burke "Ed" Roberts, Jr. was a great grandson of Rowland Q. Roberts, made a survey of her husband's family cemetery in the 1970s for the unpublished typescript "Cemeteries in Dillon County and Upper Marion County" (better known as the "Dillon County Cemetery Book"), a Bicentennial Project of the Ann Fulmore Harllee Chapter, UDC; Pee Dee Chapter, Colonial Dames; and Rebecca Pickens Chapter, DAR. Since that time Marilyn and her husband, Ed, have also been laid to rest in the family cemetery.

The earliest known survey was in 1952 by Dora Louise Easterling Drost. It appeared in a small, separate section of the "Dillon County Cemetery Book" and included only seven markers. The last known survey was in 2002 by Sheila Berry and Sandra Brumbles. Their survey can be found on the Dillon County Genweb site (sciway3.net/proctor/dillon). Mrs. Drost's 1952 survey is posted on the same webpage of Dillon Genweb; it has been updated with more recent burials.

This cemetery was surveyed once again for Findagrave by Jo Church Dickerson on 21 February 2015. It includes the most recent tombstones of Ed and Marylyn Roberts. Inconsistencies, if any, are noted on each memorial.

This cemetery page was created for Findagrave by Jo Church Dickerson, December 2014.