This cemetery is believed to have begun as a burial ground for enslaved people well before the Civil War. On November 19, 1895, Pleasant Cates officially deeded this section of ground to George Clifton and others for four dollars as a place where the African American community could bury their dead. Many of Fulton’s early African-American citizens are buried here, and because graves were often marked only with an unmarked stone, tree, or stump, many burial places remain unmarked after weathering and other losses, with no official burial records having been kept. Fulton resident Jerushie Stone, who died in 2009 at age 82, maintained during her lifetime a list of African-American citizens buried here, and the list she presented to the Itawamba County Historical Society contained 72 names, many of them associated with unmarked graves. Among those unmarked graves are those of Matilda Clifton and her husband George Clifton. Matilda was born enslaved in Wake County, North Carolina, and in 1851 Harriett Pearce Johnson, the new wife of Stephen Johnson, chose Matilda as her girl servant from a group of children playing in a yard. The Johnson family moved to Itawamba County in 1855. Matilda and George had 12 children, and Matilda, who lived to be a centenarian, died in 1939. Nancy Ann Clifton, another centenarian buried here, was born enslaved in Golden, Mississippi, and recalled being sold three times before the Civil War. In 1940, Fulton author Fred D. Howard included in his book of poems, Scrambled Eggs, a poem about Nancy titled "Old Aunt Nan," whose last stanza says: Her days on earth are dwindling fast. And when Death takes her soul at last. She'll join her comrades of the past. Old Aunt Nan. The cemetery endures as a testimony to the first African American men and women who endured the hardships of early Itawamba County life and created a community that lives on in many hearts and minds.