History behind Burkett Cemetery explored. One of Mississippi’s lesser known cemeteries.

Burkett Cemetery is one of Mississippi’s lesser known cemeteries which not many people know about. Not much history pertaining to this cemetery has been accurately preserved. This news article will explain what Burkett Cemetery is.

Burkett Cemetery was established around 1837 by Gabriel Burkett as a slave cemetery for his plantation located off James Street (Highway 24/Old Highway 49) in Hattiesburg. Gabriel Burkett named this cemetery Gabriel Burkett Cemetery. Burkett Cemetery was a slave cemetery and white cemetery which was established prior to the War Between the States during the 1860s. There are slaves who are buried next to their masters. This was a white cemetery and negro cemetery.

This cemetery was also used during the American Civil War of the 1860s as many Confederate soldiers were buried at this cemetery. Burkett Cemetery was not only used as an army cemetery but as a community cemetery. Many doctors and nurses were buried here also. (Ref: https://cumaps.net/en/US/burkett-cemetery-p4826618)

This cemetery was abandoned because farmers living in that section of Hattiesburg were driven from their homes and farms by high water rising from nearby creeks during the 1880s. (Ref: https://roadsidethoughts.com/ms/cemeteries/burkett-cemetery-xx-forrest-profile.htm)

However there are soldiers who served in World War I and World War II buried in Burkett Cemetery. Burkett Cemetery was used as recently as World War II. According to genealogytrails.com, there are 17 burials and gravestones at Burkett Cemetery. The most recent burial is the burial of Eartha Lee Conner McGowan who was buried here in the year of 1991. (Ref: http://genealogytrails.com/miss/forrest/cemeteries/burkett.htm)

Today Burkett Cemetery is a partly abandoned cemetery which contains graves of Mississippi plantation slaves and American Civil War soldiers. Several headstones have been washed out. So there are sinking graves which cannot be visibly seen. Yet many of the graves can be seen visibly from the road.

Burkett Cemetery is located at 1301 James Street, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, US 39401.