On top of a wooded hill in Zirconia near Lake Summit can be found at least 14 field stones in the Ward Family Cemetery.
One of the headstones is a hand-carved, elaborate stone: Clinton Ward, Oct. 4, 1836, Jan. 20, 1889. It is propped against a tree and may not be on the site of Ward’s actual grave.
Most of the grave markers in the cemetery have been moved.
“It looks as if loggers may have been through here at one time,” said Michael Arrowood, a former member of the Henderson County Cemetery Advisory Committee.
There are at least three rows of graves.
In the middle of one of the rows are two new, modern flat markers: Ethel, 1989-2000, and Gladys, 1989-2003.
These were children’s pets, said the property owner in 2005, Theodore W. Gage. Gage bought the property from Walter Montgomery Sr.
In tracing back property deed transfers, the property was owned by the Lake Summit Corp., who bought it from J.O. Bell, who bought it from Elias C. Ward and wife, Hattie, in 1914.
With the assistance of volunteers at the Henderson County Historical and Genealogical Society, it was found that Clinton Ward and his wife, Ellen Revis, had at least four sons: Elias Clinton, Joseph Benjamin, John and R.E. Ward.
No mention of the cemetery could be found in deeds.
It is known that the ancestor of most of the Wards in Henderson County, Bartlett Ward, born 1806, had a son named Hezekiah Clinton Ward, born Oct. 4, 1836, died Jan. 20, 1889.
Bartlett Ward, who married Nancy Morgan and lived in the Bob’s Creek section of the Green River community of southern Henderson County, was a son of American Revolutionary War veteran William Ward.
The cemetery is on private property off the North Lake Summit Road from the U.S. 176 area, near the intersection with Smyre Road. The property owner must be contacted prior to a visit.