Stone Gardens: Monument at abandoned church in Logan County celebrates the life of Allen and Sarah Byrd

Allen and Sarah Byrd

In the river lands of Logan County, the experiences of enslaved people and their descendants are often overlooked by historians and researchers. The story of Allen and Sarah Byrd provides a clear account of their lives and contributions in the area.

Allen Byrd was born around 1815–1819 in Arkansas and was enslaved on the Titsworth Plantation near Roseville. His mother had been brought from Kentucky by the Titsworth family, early white settlers who operated a cotton plantation and river port. Allen worked the cotton fields in the McLean bottoms and sometimes assisted at the family landing.

While still enslaved, he married Sarah, another enslaved woman on the plantation. Together they had sixteen children, most born into bondage before the end of the Civil War. During the war, the Titsworth family, who were Southern sympathizers, evacuated to Texas and took several enslaved people, including the Byrds, with them.

Allen was among the first to gain freedom, possibly upon the death of John Titsworth in 1863. Family oral history holds that he later purchased Sarah’s freedom. After the war, the group returned to the devastated Arkansas River Valley.

Following emancipation in 1865, Allen and Sarah chose to remain in the area they knew. They settled on land south of Roseville, near the former Titsworth holdings. Former Titsworth slaves were each provided 40 acres, and the Gray Rock community developed as a center for freed people.

Allen, known for his industriousness, acquired additional land and became prosperous enough to deed at least 40 acres to each of his children.

Census records from 1870 and 1880 show the family farming in the Roseville/Short Mountain area (listed as “Bird” in early records), with Allen and Sarah surrounded by several of their children.

The family is recorded as “mulatto,” which family oral history attributes to Allen’s father possibly being a member of the Titsworth family.

By 1880, multiple Byrd households lived nearby, reflecting their growing land ownership north of Paris.

In 1873, Allen and Sarah helped found the Gray Rock Colored Methodist Episcopal Church, which served as a central spiritual and social institution for Black residents in the region. The church was later rebuilt in 1949.

The Byrd Memorial was erected next to the Gray Rock church in 1918 by several of their children — King Seth, Alexander Suggs, Jane, Jordan John, Mansfield Montgomery, and Jonas Hezekiah — to honor their parents. The marker is not their gravestone. It was placed to recognize Allen and Sarah’s lives and work and is listed in the Arkansas Register of Historic Places for its local significance in African American history in Logan County.

Allen Byrd died on November 26, 1886. He and Sarah are buried in the now-closed Sugar Hill Cemetery in Roseville on private land. Allen has a small later marker; Sarah’s grave is unmarked. Many later generations of the Byrd family rest in nearby Gray Rock Cemetery, long believed to have originated as an old slave burial ground with numerous unmarked graves.

Gray Rock Cemetery and the surrounding sites are among the most important African American burial locations in Logan County. They reflect broader patterns of post-emancipation land ownership, church establishment, and community development in western Arkansas.

Today, the Byrd Memorial, the old church site, and the cemeteries remain points of interest for those researching local history and family connections. The Logan County Museum in Paris holds additional records on the Byrds, coal mining families, Civil War veterans, and other early settlers.

From Subiaco Abbey to Mount Magazine State Park, Logan County contains many historical layers, with the Byrd family story forming a notable part of the Arkansas River Valley’s past.