The first entries in the 1886-1931 Maplewood volume, which follow delightful details of the cemetery’s founding, noting that Maplewood’s earliest volume of burial records is “a prize possession of the cemetery commission.”

Looking for records of burials in Maplewood Cemetery? You’re in luck! Wilson County Public Library holds four: Record of Maplewood Cemetery Wilson N.C. 1894-1943; Record of Maplewood Cemetery Wilson N.C. 1886-1931; Wilson County North Carolina Cemeteries, Volume IV; and, on microfilm, the 1938 W.P.A. Cemetery Survey of Wilson County, compiled by the Historical Records Survey of North Carolina.

Looking for records of burials in Vick, Odd Fellows, or Rountree Cemeteries? Or, for that matter, Oakdale, the Masonic, or Rest Haven? Let’s check. The W.P.A. skipped all the African-American cemeteries in Wilson County. The Cemetery Commission did not keep records for them. (Or if they ever did, they’re gone.) There’s a volume 5 of the Wilson County North Carolina Cemeteries series, published in 2015, that surveys Rest Haven and “Rountree-Vick,” but we now know it falls far short of the mark.