Chartie Williams Community Cemetery
Origin of name: after Chartie Williams, who donated the land
Source of name: Commissioners Court Minutes
Alternate name: Williams Paradise Cemetery
Origin of alternate name: unknown
Source of alternate name: death certificates
Location: about one-tenth of a mile west of Highway 71, between 3.5 and 4 miles south of its intersection with Highway 90A, or about one mile north of its intersection with Duncan Lane (County Road 111)
Map: 2996-422, Altair Quadrangle (not marked)
Earliest known year of death: 1936
Earliest known year of birth: 1865
Most recent known burial: 2000
Racial mix: all black
Comments:
1. On August 23, 1954, Chartie M. Williams petitioned the Colorado County Commissioners Court to designate five acres of his property for use as a cemetery, specifying in the petition that the cemetery was to be called the Chartie Williams Community Cemetery. The commissioners voted to accept the cemetery on September 13, 1954, and recorded the land as such in Colorado County Deed Records, Book 180, p. 146. Since that time, the cemetery has more frequently been called Williams Paradise Cemetery.
2. Dora Dervin, an aged black woman, provided a list from her memory of persons she believes to have been buried in the cemetery. Many of the burials have been confirmed through other sources. These have not: Albert Banks, Ella Mae Banks (wife of Shirley Banks), Joe Bots, Ruth Calvin (daughter of Will Axel), Johnny Cotton, John and Lizzie Dabney and their sons Buddy, Henry, John, Neal, and Walter, Thomas F. Dervin (son of Richard Dervin), John Harris, Clem Johnson, Mattie Johnson (wife of Oran Johnson), Meady Johnson (nee Nichols, married Clem Johnson), Carlton Kuykendall, Clara Kuykendall (wife of Jim Kuykendall), Warren and Indy Lowe and their children Essie, George, Jim, and Plot, Leola McGrew (nee Turner), Nux McGrew, Wady Nichols, John Pettis, Laurie Indy Pettis (nee McGrew, married John Pettis), Jack Phoenix, Ethel Polk (wife of Will Polk), Liza Polk, Nora Polk, Will Polk, Clarence Robertson, Bill Shaver, Charles Shaver, Doris Shaver, Mathilda Shaver, Perline Shaver, Spencer Shaver, Stacy Shaver (daughter of John and Lizzie Dabney), Mattie Shelly (daughter of John and Lizzie Dabney), James Smith, Mary Smith (wife of James Smith), Emilie Turner, Jim Turner, Rosalie Turner, Jesse Ward, Jesse Ward (son of Jesse and Juanita Stapleton Ward), Mary Wick, Annie J. Williams (wife of Tuck Williams), Shelly Williams (son of Tuck and Annie J. Williams)
Surveyor: Bill Stein
Date surveyed: January 23 and February 10, 1992
Number of known burials to date: 186