Cooksey Family Cemetery
Also known as Lester Burying Ground
Loganville, Walton County, Georgia, USA
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More info from the Loganville Tribune:
Friday, November 18, 2005
Confederate solider's grave moved
By Sharon Swanepoel
LOGANVILLE - Col. Noah Marion Harris was born on March 20, 1826, to Henry and Lucinda Harris and died at the young age of 36.
Not too much else is known about the man who was laid to rest in his wife's family plot in Loganville following his death on May 22, 1862. But according to Robert Mitchell of the Sons of the Confederate Veterans, as a colonel in the Confederate Army he was the highest ranking officer to be buried in Walton County.
It can be assumed he never expected a military ceremony and reburial in a new resting place 143 years after his death, but that is what is happening.
Harris is in one of the six graves that had to be moved from the property on the corner of Hwy. 78 and Main Street in Loganville to make way for the new Walgreen's.
Archeologists from Greenhouse Consultants began the excavation of the site Tuesday and the painstaking work will continue until all the remains have been identified and temporarily stored in individual containers pending the re-interment.
Because of Harris' Confederate Veteran status, the re-burial will be conducted by the SCV and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Mitchell said he hopes to have enough time to get together a full military re-enactment for the burial, but if not some sort of ceremony will be performed.
He said he also hopes to find out a little more about Harris.
"It is probable that he died of disease since there is no battle that corresponds with the date of his death," Mitchell said. "He is likely from the Georgia Militia or an Alabama company but until I find that out I won't be able to find out much more about him. The only thing I have managed to trace is a muster roll from 1862."
Mitchell said federal soldiers destroyed a large portion of Milledgeville in 1864 resulting in many confederate records "going up in smoke."
Buried in the Cooksey family cemetery with Harris is his wife, Catherine A. Harris, who preceded him in death at the age of 22.
Her tombstone reads "sister, wife, mother," so it is possible that the couple had at least one child.
The cemetery also contained the graves of Harris' wife's parents, William Wilkerson and Jane Cooksey, and his sister-in-law, Mary Elizabeth Kennedy.
A 2-year-old grandson of the Cookseys, James Thomas Kennedy, was also buried there.
The Cooksey family members are entombed in crypts covered with full body tombstones and Harris and his wife's graves are marked with a Confederate memorial stone.
Ron Grunwald of the Barclay Group, the company developing the site for Walgreen's, said the cit will do whatever it can to accommodate the SCV, but several delays in the project to date have left the company pressed for time. He said the graves would be re-located to a site on the Walgreen's property in front of the water tower.
"We will restore the tombstones and make the whole cemetery look very pristine," Grunwald said. "It will be encircled with a wrought iron fence and marked as a state historic monument."
Although efforts were made to track any decedents with no success, if they ever come looking they will no longer find the graves tucked away behind an abandoned building with the only attention being an annual visit by the SVC on Veterans Day to replace the Confederate flags.
Instead they will find the whole family buried in a place of honor, fully visible to any travelers on Hwy. 78.
More info from the Loganville Tribune:
Friday, November 18, 2005
Confederate solider's grave moved
By Sharon Swanepoel
LOGANVILLE - Col. Noah Marion Harris was born on March 20, 1826, to Henry and Lucinda Harris and died at the young age of 36.
Not too much else is known about the man who was laid to rest in his wife's family plot in Loganville following his death on May 22, 1862. But according to Robert Mitchell of the Sons of the Confederate Veterans, as a colonel in the Confederate Army he was the highest ranking officer to be buried in Walton County.
It can be assumed he never expected a military ceremony and reburial in a new resting place 143 years after his death, but that is what is happening.
Harris is in one of the six graves that had to be moved from the property on the corner of Hwy. 78 and Main Street in Loganville to make way for the new Walgreen's.
Archeologists from Greenhouse Consultants began the excavation of the site Tuesday and the painstaking work will continue until all the remains have been identified and temporarily stored in individual containers pending the re-interment.
Because of Harris' Confederate Veteran status, the re-burial will be conducted by the SCV and the United Daughters of the Confederacy. Mitchell said he hopes to have enough time to get together a full military re-enactment for the burial, but if not some sort of ceremony will be performed.
He said he also hopes to find out a little more about Harris.
"It is probable that he died of disease since there is no battle that corresponds with the date of his death," Mitchell said. "He is likely from the Georgia Militia or an Alabama company but until I find that out I won't be able to find out much more about him. The only thing I have managed to trace is a muster roll from 1862."
Mitchell said federal soldiers destroyed a large portion of Milledgeville in 1864 resulting in many confederate records "going up in smoke."
Buried in the Cooksey family cemetery with Harris is his wife, Catherine A. Harris, who preceded him in death at the age of 22.
Her tombstone reads "sister, wife, mother," so it is possible that the couple had at least one child.
The cemetery also contained the graves of Harris' wife's parents, William Wilkerson and Jane Cooksey, and his sister-in-law, Mary Elizabeth Kennedy.
A 2-year-old grandson of the Cookseys, James Thomas Kennedy, was also buried there.
The Cooksey family members are entombed in crypts covered with full body tombstones and Harris and his wife's graves are marked with a Confederate memorial stone.
Ron Grunwald of the Barclay Group, the company developing the site for Walgreen's, said the cit will do whatever it can to accommodate the SCV, but several delays in the project to date have left the company pressed for time. He said the graves would be re-located to a site on the Walgreen's property in front of the water tower.
"We will restore the tombstones and make the whole cemetery look very pristine," Grunwald said. "It will be encircled with a wrought iron fence and marked as a state historic monument."
Although efforts were made to track any decedents with no success, if they ever come looking they will no longer find the graves tucked away behind an abandoned building with the only attention being an annual visit by the SVC on Veterans Day to replace the Confederate flags.
Instead they will find the whole family buried in a place of honor, fully visible to any travelers on Hwy. 78.
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- Added: 3 Feb 2008
- Find a Grave Cemetery ID: 2248296
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