Mid-1800s Rural Burial Ground in Lamar County
Lost John Road, Baxterville, MS
Age
All Ages
Cost
Free
Rural cemetery on Lost John Road south of Baxterville. No admission fee. Respect the site as an active burial ground.
Access
Limited Access
Gravel road access, uneven grass cemetery grounds
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1850 · Antebellum Mississippi Settlement · Lamar County Heritage · Timber Era Community History
Myrtle Grove Cemetery is located on Lost John Road south of Baxterville, in the southern portion of Lamar County, Mississippi. The cemetery's documented interments number approximately 55, with the earliest graves dating to the mid-1800s — placing the site's origins in the antebellum period, before the timber industry transformed the region.
Lamar County's southeastern Mississippi landscape was part of the longleaf pine belt, heavily harvested between the 1880s and 1920s when the expanded railroad network made the previously inaccessible piney woods commercially viable. Small rural communities like Baxterville grew up around the logging operations and the agricultural settlements that preceded them.
The cemetery serves as a local family burial ground characteristic of the rural South — maintained by descendants and community members, holding generations of the same families across more than a century. BillionGraves and Find a Grave both document the site, confirming its status as an active genealogical resource.
The surrounding land is privately held. Homes adjacent to the cemetery have reportedly experienced what neighbors describe as unusual occurrences, though the specifics of these accounts are not documented in formal records.
Sources
Myrtle Grove Cemetery's paranormal reputation is rooted in visitor accounts rather than documented historical events.
A visitor submitted to the Ghostly World archive describes seeing a shadow figure and a full-body apparition standing near a gravestone. The apparition, in the account, transformed into a ball of light and moved rapidly away from the observer. The account is specific enough to carry some weight — the shadow figure is stationary until the transition, the orb exits at speed — though it remains an anonymous online submission.
Separate accounts describe a physical sensation upon entry: intense unease, escalating to what some visitors characterize as severe anxiety. This variety of atmospheric response is reported at rural cemeteries throughout the Deep South and is not unique to Myrtle Grove.
The discovery of an iron rod embedded in the central area of the cemetery, topped with a doll's head — dirty, hairless, with glass eyes — has appeared in multiple accounts as an unsettling detail. Whether this object was placed by visitors as a prank, was a piece of folk practice, or reflects something else is unknown. No census of current cemetery conditions has been made in available sources.
The homes surrounding the cemetery have their own tradition. Residents describe unexplained sounds and movements inside their structures that they attribute to proximity to the burial ground. These accounts are consistent with a broader southern tradition linking active rural cemeteries to disturbance in adjacent dwellings.
Myrtle Grove Cemetery sits on Lost John Road south of Baxterville in Lamar County, with approximately 55 interments dating to the mid-1800s. The rural cemetery is surrounded by timber-country woodland. Visit during daylight; cell service is absent and the nearest town is miles away.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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