Watts Burying Ground

Watts Burying Ground

Township 48, Range 33W

The Watts Burying Ground south of Kansas City, near Dallas, about a mile and a half north of Watts' Mill, one of the landmarks of Jackson County, Missouri, was for many years the burial ground for that community. A number of the early pioneers were interred there, as were soldiers of the Union Army and of the Confederate Army who fell near that section during the Civil War.

Those stones and all traces of the old historic burying ground which we are told Mr. Watts' "deeded to the dead" have disappeared. Records were not kept so the number of pioneers interred there cannot be known. The names of but a few are recorded, among which are members of the Watts family, and of James Bridger and his sons, F. A. and William.

Mr. Stubbins Watts, realizing that the district south of Kansas City was in the path of this fast-growing community, and having seen other cemeteries completely erased, requested of his family that at his death all of the family who had been interred in this burying ground be removed to the Pleasant Valley Cemetery at Stanley, Kansas, where he himself wished to be laid to rest.

This request was heeded. In 1922, upon the death of Mr. Stubbins Watts, the ashes of his father, A. B. Watts, which had lain in Jackson County, Missouri, for 61 years, were removed with those of other members of the family, to Stanley, Kansas.

The first buhrstone used by Mr. Watts in the early days in grinding corn at the mill on Indian Creek in Jackson County, which bears his name, has been most appropriately used as a monument on the Watts' lot in the Pleasant Valley Cemetery in Kansas. Small buhrs, which were also used by Mr. Watts, are used for headstones at the graves of Mr. Stubbins Watts and his wife.

The age which is given for Mr. A. B. Watts on his headstone is said by members of the family to be incorrect, as he ran away from home at the age of 15 years and joined the Lewis and Clark Expedition up the Missouri River to the mouth of the Yellowstone.

The family burying ground was in use in 1890, for a little grandson of Stubbins Watts died and was interred there in that year. The inscription on the stone is as follows:

George V., son of T. J. and S. L. Douglas, d: June 23, 1890; age, 2 months, 21 days.

It is appropriate that in collecting and compiling facts concerning a large number of the early pioneers of Jackson County, Missouri, that the inscriptions on the stones found in a Kansas Cemetery, belonging to this family, appear in this book.

Cummings, Hiram, d: Jan. 6, 1879; age: 60 years, 5 months, 27 days
Cummings, Sarah, wife of Hiram Cummings, b: Sept. 18, 1826, d: March 26, 1896
Watts, A. B., d: Jan. 6, 1861; age: 62 years, 11 months, 5 days
Watts, Sally, wife of A. B. Watts, d: Jan. 18, 1861; age: 51 years, 7 months, 2 days
Watts, Turner S., son of S. and N. C. Watts, d: Sept. 29, 1883; age, 1 year, 6 months, 3 days
Watts, Stubbins, b: May 15, 1838, d: March 17, 1922
Watts, Nancy C., b: Oct. 13, 1851, d: Sept. 30, 1926

Watts, Lafayette, son of A. B. Watts and wife Sally Watts, removed to cemetery at Stillwell, Kansas
Watts, Harriett Douglas, wife of Lafayette Watts, removed to the cemetery at Stillwell, Kansas.

The above information was obtained from Mrs. Lizzie Watts cummins, daughter of the late Stubbins Watts, for many years owner and operator of the historic Watts Mill at Dallas, Missouri.

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This page was last updated August 19, 2006.