by Wesley Harris
The Calcote Cemetery on Tech Farm Road in Ruston is among the oldest in Lincoln Parish. Originally deep in the countryside miles from the nearest town, Calcote Cemetery is now on a busy street within Ruston’s city limits.
William Cade Calcote and his wife Mary (née Ellison) and their grown children were the first of the Calcote family to arrive in the area. They came to what is now Lincoln Parish by way of Franklin County, Mississippi, but were originally from South Carolina. Early accounts of the family’s history note the Calcotes were a respected, hard-working, ambitious family. They received the property through a land grant by President Millard Fillmore dated December 15, 1851.
Vienna was the nearest town to the Calcotes, a little over seven miles. Few people lived in the sparsely populated hills beyond the little town.
William and Mary built a log house on the homestead and began farming. A site was set aside for a cemetery because life on the frontier was rugged. Death visited as frequently as birth and a burying ground was as necessary a part of farm life as the cotton fields. A school existed across from the cemetery and a church stood to the south but was gone by 1892.
When the Masonic lodge was organized at Vienna in 1851, three Calcotes were charter members, including William and his son John Washington Calcote. John was a Republican and refused to fight for the Confederacy in the Civil War. He was instead required to make shoes for Southern troops, tanning the hides and manufacturing the shoes on his farm.
No definitive information is available on William’s political affiliation, but he was apparently well known to Republican Allen Greene, who eventually became state senator for the area and authored the bill that created Lincoln Parish. William’s grave marker lists his death as October 24, 1873 and is inscribed with the scripture verse from Psalm 84: “I’d rather be a doorkeeper in the house of God than to dwell in the den of wickedness,” followed by “He was just, pious, and a true friend. Contributed by Allen Greene.”
The marker for James Gibson Calcote, another son of William C. and Mary Calcote, is dated 1852, making it the oldest dated grave in the cemetery. James’ burial occurred over three decades before the town of Ruston was created.
However, numerous unnamed graves covered with mounds of locally collected rocks are found throughout the cemetery, possibly predating James’ death. Some family lore says at least some of the rock-covered graves are Confederate soldiers.
One of the mysteries of Calcote Cemetery is the grave of a man of apparent French ancestry, Hiram Rousseau. The Calcote family history suggests Hiram Rousseau could have joined the community to tutor the family’s children and teach at the nearby school. The large slab above his grave is inscribed “In memory of Colonel Hiram Rousseau born in Culpepper County Virginia, March 31, 1771, Died November 18, 1853.” The slab was once surrounded by a concrete wall eight inches high built on a foundation of rock. However, the wall has since disappeared. The slab also includes an engraved Masonic symbol.
A researcher speaking to the Lincoln Parish Historical Society in 1957 reported that old timers had told her Rousseau was the overseer for a large plantation owner, or that he was a sort of missionary, that he was an interesting bachelor, and that he and his brother came to the community, “took fever,” and died. The researcher learned from Virginia records that a Rousseau family lived in Culpepper County in 1801. Records showed a business transaction with a Hiram Rousseau in North Carolina in 1793.
Rousseau’s marker identifying him as a colonel has never been verified. A Hiram Rousseau is listed in a Georgia regiment in the War of 1812 but not as an officer. The researcher also learned the Ruston Masonic Lodge made an attempt to learn more about Rousseau in 1910 in order to honor him as a Mason. Little was learned through that effort.
Thousands of Louisiana cemeteries suffer from neglect. Some have been reclaimed by the forest or the swamp while others, incredibly, have been razed to make way for housing developments. Calcote Cemetery’s benefactors have maintained it and seen to its maintenance.
Mildred Trussell McGehee, a Calcote descendant, was told about the cemetery as a young woman. Her interest grew when she and her husband purchased property on Franklin Avenue in 1976 to build a home behind the cemetery. In one of her frequent trips past the cemetery at the corner of Tech Farm Road and Franklin, she saw a man working in the cemetery and stopped to visit. Bert Riser identified himself as having relatives buried there and had taken it upon himself to keep up the property. Mrs. McGehee told him she also had relatives buried there and would help as well.
After Riser’s death, Murray Rasbury helped with the upkeep. When a large tree fell on the cemetery and severely damaged the fence, Mrs. McGehee sought help from families with connections to the cemetery to remove the tree and install new fencing. The new fence was installed in 2013 with the graveyard’s first sign designating it as Calcote Cemetery. Mrs. McGehee continues to care for the cemetery with the help of others.
Families represented in the small cemetery include names longtime Ruston residents will recognize—Barnett, Brewer, Calcote, Causey, Collie, Fuller, Hightower, Norris, Rasbury, Richardson, Riser, Stocks, Volentine, Ward, Ware, Watts, and Works.
Special thanks to Patricia Flournoy, daughter of Mrs. McGehee, for her help with this article.
