Mount Holly Cemetery

Mount Holly Cemetery is a great place to go and take pictures, especially if you want to get moody black and white photos. So it seemed like a perfect place to take the new infrared camera. I didn't have the best timing for being out, since this was in the afternoon on a hot and muggy summer day in Arkansas. I was quickly drenched in sweat, but the things we do for a few pictures...



The cemetery was established way back in 1843, just twelve years after the city was founded. Mount Holly is the final resting place for many notable early residents of Little Rock and Arkansas. Among those buried here are eleven governors of Arkansas, thirteen state supreme court justices, four US senators, 21 mayors of Little Rock, and a Pulitzer Prize winning poet. Buried here are also a few other people who have been written about recently on this blog - including architect George R. Mann (who designed the Arkansas State Capitol and Little Rock Central High, among many other buildings), preservationist Louise Loughborough (who helped save several of Little Rock's oldest buildings, and led to the start of the Historic Arkansas Museum), and Adolphine Fletcher Terry (who was active in civil rights and who helped reopen Little Rock schools after they were shuttered by Orval Faubus).



A modest marker sits at the grave of Qatie Ross, the wife of the Cherokee chief John Ross. Qatie and John were travelling to Oklahoma during the Trail of Tears in 1839 when she caught pnemonia and passed away in Little Rock. She was buried at a cemetery that sits at the current location of the Federal Courthouse, but her grave was later moved here to Mount Holly. As you can see in this picture, people leave stones and coins on her gravestone.



The cemetery features a good number of Victorian-era stone markers and statues. Among them are these statues of the Virgin Mary and Joseph holding Christ, which stand out along the front row of the cemetery. The statues are at the grave of Justin Matthews, the real estate developer who designed several neighborhoods in North Little Rock, and who was the person who built The Old Mill.





A tall monument that is surrounded by massive crepe myrtle trees belongs to George Watkins, who served as the chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court and was a prominent attorney in the 1800s.



Although there have been some recent burials here (most notably Jennings Osborne), there are currently no available lots for sale. There are spaces available in the columbrian.



I headed back to the car and the welcome embrace of the air conditioning and then started heading home. But I did make one last stop while I was downtown, and got this shot of the new Broadway Bridge (which I guess isn't that new anymore, since it's been open since 2017).