Cross Creek Cemetery

Description

Cross Creek Cemetery is a cemetery located in Fayetteville, North Carolina, near a creek of that name that "meanders for more than a mile from downtown Fayetteville to the Cape Fear River." It was established in 1785. The cemetery is organized into five numbered sections and is managed by a cemetery office within Fayetteville-Cumberland County Parks & Recreation.HistoryThe original section, known as Cross Creek Cemetery Number One was established in 1785 and expanded in 1833. It contains approximately 1,170 gravemarkers dating from 1786 to 1964.After the Civil War ended, the Ladies' Memorial Association of Fayetteville had all soldiers who had been killed in battle—along with those who had died and been buried in various nearby locations—interred (or re-interred) in Cross Creek Cemetery. The group then raised the funds to erect a Confederate Soldiers Monument in Cross Creek, the first Confederate monument in North Carolina; it was dedicated on December 30, 1868.In 1915, the Cross Creek Cemetery Commission was created via an act of the North Carolina General Assembly, providing for the maintenance of the cemetery.Cross Creek Cemetery #1 was added to the National Register of Historic Places in September 1998 as a national historic district. In June 2010, "more than fifty headstones were damaged and in disarray" in Cross Creek Cemetery #1, following a report of vandalism.