Location: LaCrosse, Izard County, Arkansas, United States

Sweet Home Cemetery is an African-American cemetery near LaCrosse, Arkansas in Izard County. Find a Grave is currently reflecting 74 known graves here. The earliest known interment is for the black man, Nathaniel Watkins, who died in 1887. He was born ca. 1795.
Hayden's cemetery book also notes that, in addition the Watkins Cemetery for the white family, there is also a Watkins Black Cemetery for their slaves that contains only about 10 (in 1999) unmarked field stones. All three cemeteries, Sweet Home, Watkins family and Watkins Black, are in the LaCrosse area.
The LaCrosse area was once home to the Watkins Plantation whose brick home was built by slave labor. There were three Watkins brothers who settled in Izard County and acquired extensive land holdings and business interests in the area. LaCrosse was originally known as Wild Haws, getting its start in 1845. The name was changed in 1869, in the post-Civil War era, to LaCrosse.
The Watkins family was once one of the largest slave owning families in the county. When the slaves were freed in the aftermath of the Civil War, LaCrosse, Arkansas became home to the largest black community in Izard County and one of the largest black communities in the Ozarks. Sweet Home Cemetery is the final resting place for members of this community.
A 1850 contract between the Watkins brothers, Dr. O. T., James and William F., gave the names of five slaves belonging to O. T., who came to him through his deceased wife, Mary Kennard. The named slaves were Margaret, Lucy, Balam, Sam and Rachel. The 1850 census had O. T. Watkins owning 12 slaves out of 196 in the county. Most owners only had one.
Members of this community also intermarried with the West Plains, Howell County, Missouri black community and some can be found buried in the Sadie Brown Cemetery in West Plains.
Footnotes
- The community and post office known as Wild Haws should not be confused with the much older circa 1817 trading center known as Wild Haws Landing on the banks of the White River where Guion, Arkansas is currently located. Though both were in Izard County, these are two different locations.
Bibliography
- Miller, Mary Cooper, https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/lacrosse-izard-county-7389/
- Lindley, Helen C., The Izard County Historian, Vol. 5, No. 4, Oct. 1974, pp. 2-21. "The Watkins Brothers and Wild Haws."
- Taylor, Orville W., The Izard County Historian, Vol. 10, No. 2, April 1979, pp. 8-21. "Slavery in Izard County in the Final Decade, 1850-1860."
- Hayden, Carroll, Cemeteries of Izard County, Arkansas, 1999.
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