MARKS REUNION STILL GOING FOR 150 YEARS - The sign marking the entrance to the Marks Cemetery shows visitors how to get to one of Cleveland County’s oldest cemeteries tucked away among the pines off Hwy. 97 between Kingsland and New Edinburg. The cemetery has become the site for the Marks Family Reunion, which has been held annually since 1876. The cemetery is located near the location where the first shots of the Civil War Battle of Marks Mill were fired in April 1864. (Photo by Richard Ledbetter)
NUMBERS BOUNCE BACK - After seeing attendance dwindle into the 20’s, 45 descendants on hand to mark the 150th yearfor the annual family reunion far away as New York to attend. (Photo by Richard Ledbetter) this year's Marks Family Reunion had Some of the visitors traveled from as
HASTING MARKS - After fighting in the Creek Indian War of 1813 as a Georgia militiaman, Hasting Marks followed his brother John Harvie to Arkansas before passing away in 1846. (Photo by Richard Ledbetter)
NEW EDINBURG - Turning off the Cleveland County twolane onto a red clay road south of Kingsland and west of New Edinburg, one is transported back in time traveling on the old Pine Bluff/Camden Road built in 1832.
Well off the beaten path, where pine plantations have replaced cotton fields, the sound of traffic is faint if heard at all. The lack of modem noises allows the natural world to express itself. Once a year for a century and a half, the additional sounds of family conversation, laughter and the joyous noise of children playing echo through the hollows of Salt Branch Creek.
On midday Sunday, June 7, the parking lot next to the historic Marks Family Cemetery was filled with automobiles bearing license plates from Arkansas, Texas, New York, Mississippi, Florida and Missouri.
