SCV resets headstone of Confederate soldier

The local Sons of Confederate Veterans chapter has found at last the old Robinson Family Cemetery, where some Confederate veterans are buried.
After months of searching in the wrong location, they found it on Carters Mill Road. Now renamed the Carter’s Mill Road Cemetery, it contains the graves of Walter Jacob Robinson and John Widgeon.
This week, they went to Widgeon’s grave, a calvary company soldier who served in the Civil War, and put his displaced headstone right.
According to Ashley Pollette, historian for the Theophilus West M.D. Camp #1346 chapter, Widgeon’s granite headstone had been unsettled from its place by tree roots.
On Monday, members of the chapter re-set it a couple of inches away to get it off the root system, and are prepared to move it again if it is displaced again. They’re also trying to find the owner of the cemetery to see if the individual may be willing to cut down the cedar tree to do away with the problem altogether.
According to chapter records, Widgeon was listed as a private in the Marianna Dragoons infantry company in March 1862, and died of disease later that year.
Pollette said Monday’s task was part of a larger mission.
“The main function is to find the confederate grave sites and mark them or repair them if they’re already marked with stones but need work,” Pollette said of the organization’s Graves and Tombs Restoration Committee.
In 2007, the group worked in Riverside Cemetery to repair and set more than 10 headstones in Riverside Cemetery, and continue their work as they learn of more unmarked soldiers’ graves or those which need care.
To learn more about the project, the organization or to communicate with the membership, visit the website at http://www.scvcamp1346.org.