By John Howell
Members of the board of directors of the Batesville Magnolia Cemetery have asked the City of Batesville to take over the burial ground between Highway 51 and Eureka Street.
Chairman Kenneth Brasell and board members Buddy Gray and Rupert Howell met with Batesville’s board of mayor and aldermen during their Tuesday meeting.
According to the Mississippi Secretary of State, Batesville Cemetery is a non-profit organization created in 1886. “Magnolia” was added to the name after Magnolia trees planted by the Batesville Garden Club on the Eureka Street side during the mid-20th Century matured. The cemetery has been the traditional burial site for much of the city’s white population, while a smaller, adjoining property on the north side, also known as Batesville Cemetery, has been the traditional burial site for black residents.
“We’re recommending that you (the city) own both of them,” Brasell said.
The two surviving board members of what is listed in the Panola Genealogical and Historical Society’s (Pan Gens) 1994 Cemeteries of Panola County as “Batesville Black Cemetery,” Shirley Battle and Otis Cooper, have both indicated that they would favor the cemetery’s acquisition by the city, according to Rupert Howell who told city officials he had spoken with Battle and Cooper.
Assistant City Attorney Colmon Mitchell said that individual lots are owned by the families who have purchased them but the ownership transfer to the city would consist of only the grounds around the plots.
The attorney said that he would check with surrounding municipalities that own cemeteries including Sardis, Senatobia and Oxford to help prepare the city’s response to the request.
With Mayor Jerry Autrey, Brasell discussed current fees, prices and other policy details currently in force at the cemetery.
Gray said that the cemetery board has a current mailing list that would allow contact with families who own plots.
Burial at the hilltop site began as early as 1845, according to the Pan Gens’ cemetery publication, when the steamboat port of Panola was the nearest town. By 1859 — the railroad had arrived the previous year and its depot had begun being called Batesville — the editor of The Panola Star urged citizens to attend a meeting to arrange “for the enclosure, etc. of our much neglected burial place.”
In 1872, the cemetery was transferred to Panola Lodge No. 66 of the Free and Accepted Masons who purchased additional acreage and retained ownership until 1886 when they transferred the cemetery’s ownership to the non-profit organization currently in possession of the site.
“I think it’s an eyesore now, but it can be made into an asset,” Gray said.

Little is known about the establishment of the Batesville Black Cemetery site. The earliest tombstones trace back to the 1880s, the Pan Gens cemetery book states.
The mayor and aldermen agreed asked Brasell and the other cemetery board members to return with more information for a work session meeting. No date was set for further discussion.