Date of Visit: 18 April 24
Bradley, AR
78º cloudy skies
Park #31, Conway Cemetery earns the distinction of “most obscure” in my list so far. So obscure, in fact, that there is no traditional state park greeting sign.
Oh, that I wish the park name referenced Conway the city. Nope. This park consists of the family cemetery of Arkansas’ first governor, James Sevier Conway. To find it, you drive nearly as far southwest in the state as you can, down highway 29 to Bradley and hook west on 160. When you reach the township of Walnut Hill, you turn south again for a couple of miles until you see the familiar brown state sign for parks, wildlife management areas, and such. Turn left there and enter a tunnel of green as the trees dome over the cracked asphalt of the drive into the cemetery. In .25 miles, you arrive at your destination and the cemetery opens up before you, nestled in a nook of a large open pasture.
In terms of sights and activities, the park is simple. Several placards offer information on the governor and his family. The tombstones show how hand chiseled marble and granite age over nearly two centuries. And the black metal fence enclosing graves and trees makes for a picturesque moment. I did walk among the graves, but the number of ant hills that ran rampant through the grass meant I kept my eyes on my feet most of the time until I found a safe spot to stop. Overall, the place gave off the air of being seldom visited, which left me sad.
While I’ve read about Arkansas achieving statehood and its early governance, I didn’t have any real knowledge of Governor Conway beyond his name before my visit. Nothing I learned surprised me, but again, I was struck by how the state park system handles issues of slavery. In this case, the Conway family lived on a plantation (now long gone, no buildings remain). Conway came to Arkansas from Tennessee as a land surveyor and “began acquiring what would become a large cotton plantation” in Lafayette County in 1823. Eventually President Andrew Jackson commissioned him to survey Arkansas’ southern boundary. When Arkansas became a state in 1836 he was elected governor and served one, 4-year term. He then returned to southwest Arkansas and established the plantation called Walnut Hill. The township still carries the name.
In all of the information, I read the words “cotton” and “plantation” and of course I understood that meant slavery. However, the only mention made of the people who were actually enslaved by the governor occurs in the paragraph about his death. “His will … divided his estate (including the estate’s enslaved population) among his wife and six living children.” There is no mention of a cemetery for those slaves who died on the plantation. I couldn’t help but wonder where their remains might be resting (in unrest?).
In 1994, the last extended Conway family members to be buried here were interred and the cemetery no longer operates. Visiting the park took little time, but the information of the Conway family mirrored by the silence of the families of slaves left a definite impression.
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