Featured Manuscript Collection: November/December

Mount Holly Cemetery Association Records
MSS 98-32
Finding Aid

Left: Mount Holly Cemetery, Little Rock, Ark., 1979. Location in Collection: Box 17, File 9.





In 1843, Little Rock found itself in a troubling situation—the local public cemetery was reaching capacity. As a solution to this problem, Chester Arthur and Roswell Beebe donated four blocks of land to form Mount Holly Cemetery. Many of the state’s noteworthy citizens are buried at Mount Holly and the site was placed on the National Register of Historic Places on March 5, 1970.

Little Rock city government supervised the cemetery from 1843 to 1877 before appointing a five-member commission of prominent local citizens who took over management. Discouraged by the condition of the cemetery, a group of local women formed The Mount Holly Cemetery Association. The group was incorporated on July 20, 1915 and continues to operate today.

The Mount Holly Cemetery Association collection consists of meeting minutes, treasurer’s reports, association correspondence, biographies and obituaries of the interred, and collected essays, reports, and newspaper articles. The Association minutes, treasurer’s reports, and newspaper scrapbooks are arranged in chronological order. Biographies and obituaries are arranged alphabetically. Other portions of the collection are categorized by topic.

Image to Right:"Supplement #1 to Mount Holly Cemetery Burial Index, 1993 – 1997." Location in Collection: Box 17, File 4

Learn more about Mount Holly Cemetery at the Encyclopedia of Arkansas History and Culture.

Contributed by Stephanie Bayless, Manuscripts Department