Our History
Two Acres, Twenty-Five Years After Emancipation
In July 1889, four formerly enslaved African American men, Henry Bardwell, Harvey Hogan, Church Gordon, and Elbert Burton, established New Light Cemetery in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi on two acres of land they purchased just 25 years after emancipation. Landowners themselves and trustees of the New Light Methodist Episcopal church, the men bought the land for $20 from a local man, J.S. Worley. (All of these men can be found in the 1880 census in Oktibbeha, County.)
Thirty years later a second generation of church members and descendants expanded the property. On April 4, 1921, Mrs. Mary E. Ware sold one acre to Methodist Episcopal Church trustees Richard Cooper, Monroe Burton, Payton Burton and Anthony Hogan for $50… all three acres for church purposes said trustees being successors of those given in said original deed to M.E. Church in 1890.
The Heart of a Community
In July 1889, four formerly enslaved African American men, Henry Bardwell, Harvey Hogan, Church Gordon, and Elbert Burton, established New Light Cemetery in Oktibbeha County, Mississippi on two acres of land they purchased just 25 years after emancipation. Landowners themselves and trustees of the New Light Methodist Episcopal church, the men bought the land for $20 from a local man, J.S. Worley. (All of these men can be found in the 1880 census in Oktibbeha, County.)
Thirty years later a second generation of church members and descendants expanded the property. On April 4, 1921, Mrs. Mary E. Ware sold one acre to Methodist Episcopal Church trustees Richard Cooper, Monroe Burton, Payton Burton and Anthony Hogan for $50… all three acres for church purposes said trustees being successors of those given in said original deed to M.E. Church in 1890.
Family names, Bardwell, Burton, High, Taylor, and Watt anchor the cemetery, which remains a perpetual care cemetery for descendants of New Light.
New Light United Methodist Church
On September 10, 1973 third generation of descendants and trustees, J.C. Burton, Thomas L. Quinn, Tenolia Bardwell, L.B. Ashford, Odell Robinson Sr., Leroy Hawkins, and Arthur Thomas, sold the three acres of land formerly owned by New Light ME Church to the United Methodist Church for the sum of $1. The name was changed to New Light United Methodist Church.
The 21st century began a period of declining membership for New Light United Methodist Church. On April 16, 2023, the United Methodist Church Mississippi Conference held at Griffin Chapel voted to close New Light. The church officially closed on June 30, 2023 after nearly 100 years.
Returning New Light to Its Descendants
On May 13, 2024, the Mississippi Conference of the United Methodist Church, Inc. offered local descendants the opportunity to purchase the cemetery and church property.
The New Light Cemetery Restoration Fund seized this opportunity to return the cemetery and church established by our ancestors, to the care and oversight of their descendants. On December 12, 2025, the organization purchased the original three acres of New Light Cemetery and church property from the Mississippi Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church for $7,152.
The church is currently in serious disrepair and has no monetary value. While we are exploring grant opportunities that would allow us to restore the church, the maintenance and preservation of the cemetery are the sole focus of the New Light Cemetery Restoration Fund.