Our Cemeteries

Keeping our Ancestors' Graves

The rural Southern tradition of burying our dead in family-owned plots (usually our back fields) bears a risk that as we began to move way from our farms the graves will be lost and forgotten.  Several of the PenderROCK family plots have been lost already -- the Old Jacobs Graveyard and the Old Merritt Graveyard, for example.

Some of the family plots are well-maintained.  Others are struggling, as descendants now spread across the country try to manage upkeep.

This section of PenderROCK will document the plots to keep the graves from being sold, plowed over, and grown over.

 

Rhyne's Crossroads Cemeteries

There are several gravesites in the Rhyne's Crossroads/Piney Wood Road Community.   The crossroads is the intersection of Piney Wood Road and Horse Branch Road.  (Online maps position the name "Rhyne's Crossroads" in the wrong location)   MAP

From the crossroads going east on Piney Wood Road, the first lane to the right is a dirt road leading to the homestead of Arthur C. Herring and Annie Walker Herring.  Past the homeplace (lost to fire in the 1980s) and behind the fields is the Herring/Walker Cemetery.  If one were to walk due northwest through the woods (a family path that is now grown over), one would arrive at the backfields of the Joel Walker homestead.  The Joel Walker Cemetery sits in front of that homestead, at the end of Joel Walker Road, off of Horse Branch Road.

If one took the second instead of the first lane from Rhyne's Crossroad, the homestead is that of Pearlie Walker and Daisy Merritt Walker.  Daisy Walker is interred there.

Still further down Piney Wood Road is the family church, New Hope Baptist Church.  The church recently started its own cemetery there.  Continuing a mile or so past the church, Jacobs on Piney Wood Road Cemetery is tucked behind a stretch of homes belonging to descendants of James Owen Jacobs and Octavia Williams.

If you take Highway 53 from Rhyne's Crossroad back into Burgaw, you will pass Walkertown Road on your right.  Walkertown Cemetery is there.

 

Cypress Creek Cemeteries

There are at least two gravesites in the Cypress Creek Community.   'Cypress'  is the ancestral home of the Jacobs since the late 1700s.  Today, the main road is known as Shiloh Road.  It is near the Penderlea community and the closest large intersection is with Penderlea Highway.  Off from Shiloh Road in a southern direction is Messick Road.  Previously a dirt lane and a  bridge across the creek, this road leads to the homestead of the Jacobs.  On the right side of the road lies Hattie Merritt Jacobs Cemetery. MAP

Shiloh Road runs east-west parallel to Piney Wood Road.  Now there are dense woods in between.  In generations past, the Jacobs walked to Piney Woods for church (New Hope Baptist) and school (Love Grove) by heading straight south through woodland paths.  In these same woods, lies the Old Jacobs Cemetery.  It is between Cypress and Piney Wood Roads.  Absent archeological assistance, it is apt to never be found.  Anguish Jacobs, husband of Hattie Merritt Jacobs, was buried there in 1935.    His son Willie Henry Jacobs (1907-2002) stated that he had walked the woods many many times, looking for his father's and ancestors' graves.  If the last generation of elders could only provide a general location, it is unlikely that the graves will be found.

 

 

Currie / Moore's Creek Cemeteries

 

Pender County Church Cemeteries

These are public cemeteries. They appear to be fairly-well maintained by the anonymous volunteers at Find-a-Grave.  So we won't duplicate that work and create a separate page for them on this site.

Sampson & Wayne County Cemeteries