This cemetery now known as the Austin Pioneer Cemetery was founded at least by 1831. This was when Arkansas was still a Territory and five years before statehood. At the time of these burials the cemetery's location would have been in Pulaski or Prairie Counties depending on the year of burial. Today it's located in Lonoke County, Lonoke County was formed on April 16, 1873. It probably started out as the family cemetery of the Dunaway/Saunders/Ferguson families from South Carolina and used for that purpose up until the Civil War. There were members of these families that died around Austin between 1850 and 1860, some of these deaths are probably lost graves in this cemetery. About the start of the Civil War in 1861 the Butterfield Stage and Mail Line ran through Austin and passed within fifty yards of this historic cemetery.
In 1862-63 when the Confederate Army controlled the Austin area a number of confederate soldiers died in hospitals (churches) at Austin and are likely buried in this cemetery. With the fall of Little Rock in September of 1863 and through November of 1864 the Union Army pretty much occupied the Austin area. The cemetery grounds and surrounding area served as a Union Army Cavalry camp during the war. There were any number of union deaths in Austin while they were here. With the hospitals being so close to this cemetery, the union dead may well have been buried here. On August 1, 1868 seventeen Union soldiers were reinterred and moved from a cemetery in Austin to the National Cemetery in Little Rock.
It's believed that no graves were placed in this cemetery after the Civil War as the Old Austin Cemetery came into use about that time. Over time this little cemetery became lost and forgotten but to only a few old memories. In 2014 I rediscovered it and we're working to preserve it physically and historically. I have started the Austin Pioneer Cemetery Fund to raise money for projects at the cemetery, like major cleanup work, and build a visitors gazebo on the site. The floor will be made from donators engraved bricks, a white engraved brick is $100 and the red engraved is $50. For information or to donate send to Austin Pioneer Cemetery Fund, 1616 W. Cleland Rd., Cabot, Arkansas 72023. e-mail at [email protected]
R.D. Keever