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This is not one of my family lines, however this article from an Arkansas newspaper was interesting. For anyone having Waddill family around Jackson County Arkansas, it might be a great find. Red Anthony, Arkansas
Homeowner discovers lost graves
150-year-old site found in Newport, Arkansas
NEWPORT — Lionel Bullard’s new neighbors are so quiet he didn’t even know they were there. His neighbors have been dead for some 150 years.
After Bullard and his wife, Paula, moved into their new home in the Galeria subdivision on the east side of town, they discovered a small cemetery amid a 40-by-40-foot tangle of weeds, pea vines, small trees and brush.
"I’m kind of sentimental," Paula Bullard said. "We don’t know anyone in there, but if it was my mom or dad, I’d want someone to clean it up."
Some of the tombstones date back to the 1850s before Newport was even a town.
Bullard bought the home, built in 2001, from the estate of a woman who died only months after it was built.
"We thought it was a pumping station," Paula Bullard said of the moment they noticed the overgrown area when they moved in on July 9. An earthen levee, built years ago to protect the area from runoff from nearby Newport Lake, runs behind their house.
"We started cutting back the brush and found a [chain-link ] fence." she said. "I looked in and saw a headstone. I said, ‘Wow. It’s a cemetery.’"
Bullard found six upright gray stone markers and fragments of other tombstones in the cemetery. At first he thought the small cemetery contained about 15 or 20 plots.
But a visitor told him Thursday that years ago a relative cared for the site, and she remembered there were 50 or 60 people buried there.
For the most part, though, the cemetery was forgotten.
County records don’t show the cemetery. Several genealogical Internet Web sites mention numerous Jackson County graveyards, but none mentions the one on Galeria.
The cemetery doesn’t even show up on plat maps.
"Our maps show nothing at all," said Laura King, an assistant in the Jackson County assessor’s office. "It’s owned by somebody, but it’s not been platted."
An aerial photograph shows the area before it was cleared, she said.
"There are a lot of forgotten small cemeteries in Arkansas," said Mark Christ, director of the Arkansas Historic Preservation. "People who tend to small family plots may leave the area; others may die. We’ve come across some out in the woods."
Bullard may submit the cemetery for consideration on the National Register of Historic Places. A representative of the U.S. Geological Society’s Fayetteville office will soon inspect the site, he said.
At least two families share the small plot, and each tombstone is engraved with either the name "Robinson" or "Waddill." The earliest stone is dated Jan. 26, 1852, and marks the grave of 6-year-old W.B. Waddill.
Bullard, 58, is a retired security worker for the Monsanto Company in St. Louis and a former Newport policeman who once arrested a Top 10 FBI fugitive. He found information indicating the land was once owned by the Waddill family before Newport incorporated as a town in 1875.
J.B. Waddill was a key figure in developing a road from Newport to Oil Trough in the mid-19th century. He also sold some of his land in what was then known as East Newport so crews could build a bridge across Newport Lake in 1874. The span improved travel from Augusta to nearby Jacksonport.
Bullard intends to keep the cemetery trimmed, and he may clean up the gravestones if he can find an expert to help him.
The Bullards don’t believe in ghosts and aren’t spooked by living beside a cemetery. But they’ve had one inexplicable experience.
Exhausted after working on clearing the cemetery, the two went to bed. At midnight, their bedroom television set came on.
"I thought Lionel had the remote control," Paula Bullard said. "He thought I had it. Somehow, the TV got turned on.
"I laughed and said, ‘All right, you guys, chill out. As long as you stay on your side of the fence, and we stay on ours, we’ll get along.’"
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