© Dennis Muncrief

Old Five Mile Cemetery

Murray County, Oklahoma

© Dennis Muncrief

This African American Cemetery is located 11 miles west of Davis, Murray Co., OK on Hiway 7. There are about 119 marked but unknown graves. Some of these are marked with metal pipes. There are many native stone markers with no inscriptions. Original registry by the Arbuckle Historical Society, with reorganization by Dennis Muncrief.

To get to the cemetery from Davis, OK go west on SH 7 about 9 1/2 miles to Mountain View road. Turn left (south) and go to the first section line and turn right (west). Travel west on the county road 9/10ths of a mile. There is a sign on the right that reads "Arbuckle Ranch" with an underground house. The pasture gate will be there on the left. Take the pasture road 3/10ths of a mile over the hill until you come to a fork in the path, take the right fork. Continue down the hill until you come to the flat near a creek. The cemetery is about fifty yards to the right (west) in a grove of trees.

This cemetery is one of the most historically significant cemeteries in Murray County as it is an African American cemetery which contains the Chickasaw and Choctaw Freedmen (ex-slaves) and their descendants. The slaves were brought with the Chickasaw and Choctaw people when the U.S. Government removed them from Alabama, Mississippi and Tennessee.

Old Five Mile is one of the first cemeteries in Murray County and possibly the oldest as there are many graves marked with only native stones. There are also five graves that are the typical stone monoliths of Chickasaw burials. Descendants of these interred still live in the area known as Jacksonville. Before school integration there was a county school in the area known as Jackson Special School for local black children.

The cemetery has been horribly vandalized with every tombstone, save one, toppled and smashed to pieces. The information on some of the stones could not be pieced together as some of the stones had missing parts. I visited and read this cemetery in Feb of 2004.

If you have family buried in the Old Five Mile Cemetery or can take a gate photo or have obits (with newspapers permission or an obit that you can write) or tombstone photos or individual portraits or can write a short bio or have a history of the cemetery and would like to add your information to this website, contact the area coordinator for more information. You can also check out our How to Submit page.

NOTICE. If you submit information to this website and change your e-mail address please notify the area coordinator with the county/cemetery and new e-mail address so we can keep our pages as up to date as possible.

NOTE Every effort has been made to transcribe this information accurately. These records MAY CONTAIN ERRORS. Any corrections and/or additions greatly appreciated. As with any genealogy information, this is a source and should be considered as such. It is up to the researcher to verify the accuracy.