The following is an excerpt from a fascinating and extensive article posted at the Vicksburg Post website – over three separate days. Links are provided throughout the article.
Descendents of William Warren Williamson say he was a prominent Vicksburg [Mississippi] landowner with an interest in fighting roosters.
His home, which stood near where the Louisiana Monument is now located in the Vicksburg National Military Park, was sacrificed during the Civil War to build fortifications as the Confederate army prepared to defend the city.
The discovery of Williamson’s grave at Vicksburg’s Beulah Cemetery — reported in Sunday’s edition — has his family members mining their genealogical files and recalling stories passed down through five generations.
W.W. Williamson was nicknamed “Shanghai,” said his great-great-great-grandson, Chris Williamson, a Crystal Springs resident who contacted The Vicksburg Post after reading about his ancestor’s grave marker, discovered in what later became primarily an African-American cemetery.
Willliamson died in 1859, before the Civil War came to town in 1862 and before the creation of what’s known as Beulah Cemetery, which was a private, fraternal burial ground for black Vicksburg residents from 1884 through the 1940s. There have been many efforts to restore and maintain Beulah in recent years, with a major effort coming this summer and assisted by AmeriCorps NCCC volunteers. It was two AmeriCorps workers who found Williamson’s gravestone — creating something of a mystery, but not to Williamson’s kin who say he was something of a character.
Read the full article in the September 29, 2009 edition of the Vicksburg Post.
Also see: Funeral home records indicate Beulah marker belonged to white
