What's Up - Your guide to what's happening in Fayetteville, AR this week!
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APRIL 10-16, 2022 WHAT'S UP! 37 BELLA VISTA FAQ Cemetery Tour WHEN — 12:30 p.m. April 16 WHERE — Starts from the Bella Vista Historical Museum COST — $15 per person or $25 for two people; reservations required INFO — 855-2335 or email bellavistamuseum@gmail. com FYI — The tour "does require walking up and down hills in some cases" and is not suit- able for people with mobility issues. Resurrecting The Past Driving tour visits historic Bella Vista cemeteries BECCA MARTIN-BROWN NWA Democrat-Gazette I t's a good bet that anyone who lives in Bella Vista has dropped something off in the drive-through behind the Goodwill store across from Town Center. It's an equally good bet that few of those donors noticed the cemetery just south of the resale store. The cemetery was once part of a community called Dug Hill, says Xyta Lucas, co-president of the Bella Vista Historical Society, and it's one of the stops on an historical cemetery tour April 16. The four-hour, seven- cemetery driving tour is a fundraiser for the Bella Vista Historical Museum and has been taking place as public demand initiates it since 2017. Dug Hill, according to a presentation given by Lucas Monday evening at the Bella Vista Public Library, dates back to about 1868, when a log school and community building was constructed. According to former residents, the name came from steps taken to make the hill less steep — residents "dug down" the road to make it more accessible. A series of structures followed on the site as buildings were lost to fire or other destruction, ending with the current church building overlooking U.S. 71. Built in 1936, it was used as a school and a community building, Lucas says, and was initially located further to the west. It was moved east when U.S. 71 expanded to four lanes in the 1970s. From 1867 to 1945, school was held on Dug Hill regularly, sometimes with as many as 35 children in attendance. Miss Sarah "Sadie" Cunningham, who resided in the old Cunningham residence near the junction of Riordan Road and U.S. 71, was both a pupil and later a teacher at Dug Hill School. She recalled that, throughout the years, Dug Hill was the scene for funerals, literary recitals, singings and Christmas services. The school joined the Bentonville School District in 1945, Lucas says, and the building was leased to several churches over the ensuing years, among them the Country Harvest Church, which was the most recent. The cemetery, which Lucas says still occasionally accepts a new interment, is maintained by the Dug Hill Cemetery Association and includes the graves of Civil War veterans Alexander Oaks, Benjamin J. Tripp, Harrison Lucas and Henry C. Leach. Also on the driving tour are the Beavers Cemetery at the corner of Lorna Drive and Edinburgh, established in 1906 on property owned by Lewis Beavers, who died in 1912; the Donovan/Nott Cemetery, located on a trail leading out of Brims Ness Lane cul de sac, established around 1900 by Cyrus Nott, who is buried there with his wife and daughter; the Funk Cemetery on Sherlock Drive; the Miller Cemetery at the corner of Miller Church Road and Punkin Hollow Road; New Home Cemetery on Peach Orchard Road west of Lowe's; and the Summit Cemetery off Granshire and Aventon. All of them date back to the turn of the 20th century. Some of the cemeteries are visible from the road, while others are hidden deep in the woods, according to Lucas. One, the Wilson Cemetery in Punkin Hollow, is not on the list because it is on privately owned land. It is the resting place of Philo Spottswood Wilson, also known as P.S. Wilson, who at 26 joined Company D of the 36th Arkansas Infantry Regiment of the Confederate States of America on June 30, 1862, in Van Buren. He fought in battles at Cane Hill and Prairie Grove and his name is listed at Prairie Grove Battlefield State Park. Captured after one year in service, Wilson was sent to Alton Prison in Alton, Ill., and finally paroled Aug. 12, 1863. He homesteaded 80 acres in the old Batie Township in northwest Benton County in October 1884, and he and his wife Margaret (whom he married in 1868) had 12 children. The original gravestone of Philo S. Wilson shows the usual design of Confederate soldier gravestones. The cemetery where Wilson is buried is on private property in Bella Vista. (Courtesy Photo) The Dug Hill school and church building, pictured in the winter of 1978 and now, is located just behind Goodwill in Bella Vista's Town Center. The adjacent cemetery will be part of a driving tour April 16 hosted by the Bella Vista Historical Society. (Courtesy Photos)