Mt. Auburn and the Old Homeplace
The story of Mt. Auburn is one of the clearest examples in this project of how place, memory, and genealogy overlap.
In A Long Time Ago: A History of the Atkins-Paynter and Allied Families, members of the Atkins family were first buried in the family burying ground at the old homeplace. Later, when Buggs Island Lake was formed in 1954, the remains of several family members were removed and reinterred at Mt. Auburn Church cemetery.
The book specifically notes this in connection with Dosha Lawson, described there as "Mother Atkins" on the government marker. It also notes that descendants helped fund a granite stone in 1984 in memory of those whose graves were moved from the old homeplace to Mt. Auburn.
This is an important family-history theme because it shows that burial places were not always fixed, and that the landscape itself changed under the family record. A cemetery marker seen today may reflect both an original burial tradition and a later act of preservation.
For visitors, this page also serves as a reminder that genealogy is often a history of removals, relocations, memory work, and efforts by later descendants to keep the older family story from being erased.
Related People
- Dosha Lawson , remembered in this branch as "Mother Atkins" and later reinterred at Mt. Auburn
- Patrick Henry Atkins , son of Dosha Lawson and one of the key family members tied to the Keats homeplace and later burial history
- Paulina Sue Lawson , wife of Patrick Henry Atkins and part of the same burial and reinterment story
Source
Related external reading
- Buggs Island Lake on Wikipedia (external link)
