Watkins Family Cemetery
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The Benjamin T. Watkins Cemetery is located on the south side of Hutcheson Ferry Rd, approximately 0.5 mile east of Sardis Rd and Sardis Baptist Church. The cemetery is on private property.
Photos taken in the early 2000s show at least four grave stones and the Benjamin T. Watkins military marker (see tombstone list). As of 2009, only the Watkins military marker remains and it appears to have been relocated to the SE corner of a fenced-in corral. Benjamin Templeton Watkins was born July 4, 1797. He was drafted into the Georgia military in 1818 and fought in the Seminole Wars. In 1825 he married Hannah Lassetter (March 10, 1809-December 2, 1851), possibly a descendant of a Cherokee Indian, and they both moved to Campbell County, Georgia in the 1830s. They had twelve children together. In 1838, Benjamin T. Watkins was commissioned as a captain of the Georgia Volunteers during the Cherokee removal in North Georgia and served as the commander of Fort Cumming. He died December 2, 1875. Source: Benjamin T. Watkins family papers, 1818-1920. Emory University Stuart A. Rose Manuscript, Archives, and Rare Book Library. The Watkins log home on this property was purchased and relocated in the early 2000s by a University of Georgia professor to his farm in Crawford Georgia as part of his Georgia Log Cabin project. (See Watkins Log Cabin story) . |