Bellefonte Cemetery / Town of Bellefonte
(Front):
Before the courthouse was completed, the community selected a location for a cemetery. The highest elevation in Bellefonte's corporate limits was chosen as the town's burial place. The earliest inscribed marker in Bellefonte Cemetery bears the date 1826.
The Civil War exacted a heavy toll on Bellefonte. The Federal Army burned the courthouse and the town never recovered. The town square was sold at public auction in 1878. Only the Bellefonte Cemetery remains of the bustling river port town which was Jackson County's seat of justice from 1828 until November 1868.
A 1936 TVA Survey identified 229 grave plots and 57 inscribed markers in the cemetery. Recent surveys of the cemetery show many graves with plain limestone rocks and numerous unmarked graves.
The Jackson County Historical Association began efforts to preserve the Bellefonte Cemetery in 2005. The placed the marker here to honor those individuals who established the 19th centure town of Bellefonte, Alabama.
The Alabama Historical Commission listed the Bellefonte Cemetery in the Alabama Historic Cemetery Register in 2006.
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The Alabama Legislature established Riley's on Mud Creek as a voting site five days after Jackson County was created on December 13, 1819. Shortly thereafter, Stephen Carter and George W. Higgins purchased James Riley's 640-acre Cherokee Reserve. According to local history, Carter and Higgins renamed Riley's on Mud Creek to Bellefonte after the spring which served as the town's water supply and sold lots in the town.
On December 15, 1821, the Alabama Legislature incorporated 60 acres in Bellefonte. Six years later, the Legislature extended Bellefonte's corporate limits to include 100 acres of land donated to the county by Carter and Higgins.
Bellefonte was selected as Jackson County's first permanent seat of justice and a two-story, brick courthouse was erected in 1828.
Marker is on Bellefonte Road (County Road 33) 0.8 miles east of Lee Highway/John T Reid Parkway (U.S. 72), on the left when traveling east.
Courtesy hmdb.org
