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Looney Cemetery Summary Report, page 1

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LOONEY CEMETERY Draft of December 7, 2004 The exact physical location of this cemetery is lost in antiquity to some extent. There have been reports from arsenal workers who recall seeing tombstones as they traveled along Martin Road near Gate 7, and a few old maps indicate a cemetery in the area along Anderson Road and just north of Martin Road. In the book CEMETERIES OF MADISON COUNTY, ALABAMA; Vol. I; by Dorothy Scott Johnson (1971), Mrs. Johnson included a map on page 269 to show the cemeteries of the arsenal area. On this map (see below, but increase the view size to about 200% to see details), she indicated that Looney Cemetery was somewhere in Section 35 of Township 4S, Range 2W. However, she also added a note to indicate that she could not locate the cemetery when she was collecting information for her book during the 1960s and 1970. Additionally affirmative aspects of the location being in Section 35, as shown on Mrs. Johnson's map, are to be found in the old land and tax records of Madison County, coupled with genealogical data about the Looney families in the area. The January 1809 census of Madison County (Mississippi Territory at the time) did not include an entry for any Looney families. Likewise, the earliest remaining (1810) tax list for the county does not have an entry for a Looney. However, the 1811 tax list does have an entry for an Absalom Looney (see the insert after the map below). Furthermore, the OLD HUNTSVILLE LAND OFFICE RECORDS & MILITARY WARRANTS, 1810 - 1854, by Marilyn Davis Barefield (1985) shows that on August 7 of 1812 Absalom Looney became the owner of land in Section 12 of Township 4S, Range 1W as the assignee of John Hunt. (This John Hunt was, of course, the namesake of Huntsville, the man who built his cabin at the Big Spring, which was initially called Hunt's Spring.) The land that Absalom Looney acquired from the government in lieu of John Hunt is located by the intersection today of Drake Avenue with Memorial Parkway. That intersection is in almost the exact center of Section 12, T4S-R1W. A check of the Government Tract Book (see below) shows that 1 - (3223)    

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