Mount Paran Campground and Cemetery

Mount Paran was one of the earliest known Cumberland Presbyterian campgrounds in Madison County, and its cemetery became the resting place for many of the county's pioneer settlers, with the earliest surviving gravestone dated 1826. Originally this six acre site was bequeathed to Mount Paran Presbyterian Church of New Market in 1842 by Samuel Davis. A division within the congregation in 1906 led to the dissolution of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church at New Market in 1914, and some of its members joined neighboring congregations. As its use declined, the cemetery became known as Graveyard Hill. Today it comprises 3.77 acres and contains approximately 400 grave sites, of which 135 still have markers. Buried here are Revolutionary War veterans Samuel Davis and Moses Poor, along with their families, as well as those of Isaac Criner and John Miller, and records indicate the burial of many early pioneers, farmers, servants, merchants, physicians, educators, ministers, public officials, veterans of major wars, and others whose good works may be known only to God.

New Market, Alabama · United States