Red Eagle descendants are buried at Mineola in Monroe County, Alabama

My friend Joe Witherington of Monroeville took me and some local Boy Scouts on Saturday afternoon to see one of Monroe County’s most unique historical sites – the Weatherford Indian Cemetery at Mineola.

This unique cemetery is located at the end of Weatherford Cemetery Road, off of County Road 2, just north of Little River, which makes up the border between Monroe and Baldwin counties. When you arrive at this cemetery, the first thing you will see is a modern monument placed there in 2014 by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. This arrowhead-shaped monument bears the cemetery’s name and sits atop a large stone base just outside the cemetery gates.

Just eye-balling it, I’d say this cemetery contains about 50 graves, but I got the feeling that there were also a few unmarked graves within the confines of its chain-link perimeter. The oldest grave that I saw there on Saturday was that of Charles Weatherford Sr., who passed away in July 1896, when he was 96 years old. His grave is marked by a piece of lighter wood and a modern grave marker that denotes that he was the son of William Weatherford, the famous Creek Indian leader better known as “Red Eagle.”

Newspaper clippings from the time of Charles Weatherford Sr.’s death say that his demise “removed one of the landmarks of Monroe, one of the few links that connect the present with the past. Mr. Weatherford was perhaps at the time of his death, the oldest man in the county, having attained the advanced age of 96 years. He was a son of William Weatherford, the noted Indian chieftain ‘Red Eagle,’ whose deeds of daring and patriotism are familiar to all readers of Indian history. Mr. Weatherford passed all his long life in this county and the many stirring incidents and events connected with its early history with which he was familiar would have filled a large and interesting volume.”

Beside the grave of Charles Weatherford Sr. is the grave of Charles Weatherford Jr. and Alexander Moniac Sizemore, who were Red Eagle’s grandson and great-grandson, respectively. Charles Jr. was found dead in September 1909 on the bank of a creek where the 75-year-old had been fishing. When he didn’t come home, his family went to search for him and found him by the barking of his faithful dog, according to newspaper accounts of his death. Sizemore died in 1911 at the age of 74.

These graves and a number of others are marked with lighter wood stumps and posts that appear to be very old. Joe Witherington, who grew up in the nearby Chrysler community, said that the lighter wood markers had been there as long as he could remember, going back to when he was a small boy in the 1960s. Joe knows this part of the county like the back of his hand, and he is full of knowledge and lore about this part of the county.

In the end, I appreciate Joe taking the time to show this unique historic site to our group on Saturday. If anyone in the reading audience has any additional historical information about this area that they’d like to share, please let me know. I’m especially interested in any old ghost stories, local legends or Indian lore from this part of Monroe County, so if you know anything along these lines, please let me hear it.