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mcc-jrr_372-010
Madkin Cemetery, 37-2 Summary Report, page 10
In 1870 Richard's son William Holding (who would have been age 29 in 1870) in turn sold the land to William M. McCloskey, after the conclusion of the Civil War, when the slaves were all freed. Probably a lot of the land owned by old plantation owners had to be sold after the Civil War, when there were no workers available unless they received wages or became sharecroppers. When land couldn't be farmed to be made productive or revenue producing, then it had to be sold before back taxes caused it to be seized and auctioned. The conclusion of these land transactions is that the Matkin family owned the land where the “Madkin” Cemetery is located for about 8 years, from 1846 to 1854. Of course, if the Miles Watkins was really Miles Matkins, then the family may have owned the land from 1829 to 1854. During the years of the practice of enforced slavery, John Baker owned the land for 19 years, while George Davis owned it for 14 years, of which 9 years were during the time of slavery. Since the Matkin ownership is known to have lasted about 8 years (with the possibility of being 8 plus another 17, if there was a marriage or other probate basis between the Wood, Beadle, Watkins, and/or Baker men to the Matkin women), then it appears that the Matkin name should not be the basis for the name of this cemetery. That concept, of course, assumes that it is indeed a slave cemetery. If so, it may well have slaves that were owned by the Baker or Davis families, more so than the Matkins. The cemetery could also have been used for the slaves used by Richard and William Holding to farm this parcel. Madison County marriage record indexes were checked to see if a relationship among the families who owned the land could be indicated, as a clue to the likelihood of probate court transitions of ownership. By examining the on-line index provided by the Madison County Records Center, any marriage before the 1870s for surnames of Baker, Beadle, Couch, Davis, Holding, Matkins, Watkins, and/or Wood was noted. (This included variant spellings of the surnames, such as Beedle for Beadle and Holden and Holdin for Holding.) There were only 4 marriages of people with these surnames to anyone with one of the other surnames of the group, which is based upon land ownership records. These were: * Milton Davis - Betsy Baker 1819 * W. H. Davis - M. J. Matkin 1855 10 - (1820)