A few miles east of the cemetery is gravity hill, a haunted intersection where if you pull in to the intersection and let off the brake your vehicle will roll backwards "up hill". Also, there is another cemetery approximately one mile east. There you will see an above ground grave, a brick tomb if you will, on the side of the tomb is a small brick addition. The small addition is for the grave occupant's arm. The arm was removed years earlier due a medical condition and buried there in its own brick tomb until the person died. The arm and person was reunited so to speak.
MARKER ID: I 57
MARKER TEXT: Stewartsville Cemetery. Begun 1785. Congressman James Stewart gave land. J. C. McLaurin, who founded Laurinburg, and many Scots buried here. Two miles southwest.
Essay: Stewartsville Cemetery was founded in the Scotland County community of the same name in 1785. It was incorporated in 1913 by twenty-three residents of Scotland and Robeson counties. In 1965 the cemetery was restored by the Laurinburg Junior Chamber of Commerce and the Stewartsville Cemetery Board of Trustees.
Among those buried there are some of the pioneer Scottish immigrants who were influential in that area of the state. Lauchlin McLaurin, founder of Laurinburg, was buried there in 1868 after being killed by lightning. The cemetery is also the site of the burial plot of the first pastor of Bethel Presbyterian Church (founded in 1776), the Reverend Colin Lindsay, who died in 1817.
The eight-acre cemetery is located on land that at one time was thought to have belonged to Congressman James Stewart, who was buried there following his death in late 1821. While Stewart lived nearby and is certainly buried there, he would have been only ten years old when the cemetery was established. Apparently the original deed for the cemetery was lost and the eight acres were donated in two parcels by John and Henry Malloy. The Stewartsville cemetery was eventually divided by race into three sections. There was a white section, largely Scottish immigrants and their descendants, as well as African-American and Indian sections. The white section is separated from the black one by a low chain-link fence, while the Indian section is set apart from the black section by small concrete boundary posts.
References:
Laurinburg Exchange, May 3, 1967, and December 1, 1997
Angus W. McLean, et al., Lumber River Scots and Their Descendants: The McLeans, the Torreys, the Purcells, the McIntyres, the Gilchrists (1942)
Annabella Bunting MacCallum MacElyea, The MacQueens of Queensdale: A Biography of Col. James MacQueen and His Descendants (1916)
Location: US 74 at SR 1611 (South Rocky Ford Road) east of Laurinburg (of marker)
County: Scotland
Original Casting: 1967-P
From website: (
visit link)
The following is a story I have heard all my life. My grandmother first told me this when I was just a youngster.
The following is reprinted from the book "A Sense of Place, Part II" by Marilyn Wright (1996, Walsworth Publishing Co.):
"A fascinating legend of the Sandhills region is that of Colin Lindsay. The tale begins in Scotland with Lindsay's mother. In 1736, a Scottish woman fell sick and entered a deep coma. Thought to be dead, she was buried near her home. The evening of the burial, grave robbers, greedy for the diamond rings on her fingers, dug up the body. Finding one ring extremely difficult to remove, they began to cut off her finger. At this same moment, she regained consciousness and sat up in her coffin. The terrified robbers fled, leaving the unfortunate soul alone in the cemetery. She walked back to her home. Six years later, in 1744, this woman gave birth to Colin Lindsay. Colin Lindsay immigrated to the United States in 1790. He settled in the Sandhills region and became one of the area's most colorful, if not cantankerous, ministers. He was suspended from the Presbyterian ministry three times due to his violent temper. Colin was the first minister of OLd Laurel Hill Presbyterian Church and is now buried in Stewartsville cemetery."
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