{"nrhp_refnum":"06000291","name":"Faison Cemetery","other_names":[],"category":"site","location":{"address":"East Main St. (NC 403)","address_restricted":false,"city":"Faison","county":"Duplin County","state":"NC","lat":35.11586840700005,"lon":-78.13219800999997,"geom_source":"nps_gis"},"listed_date":"2006-04-19","is_nhl":false,"nhl_designated_date":null,"areas_of_significance":["Social History","Art"],"significance_levels":["local"],"summary":{"what_it_is":"The Faison Cemetery is the town burying ground on the eastern edge of Faison, Duplin County, North Carolina, covering 6.55 acres, with about 320 marked graves in the nominated portion. It began as the Faison family graveyard, with the first known burial being Henry Faison in 1788.","why_significant":"The nomination argues the cemetery holds graves of people who shaped Faison's development, including military and political leaders, physicians, a congressman and an artist. It also argues the cemetery contains a range of nineteenth-century funerary art, including baroque head and footstones, box-tombs, obelisks and tablets, reflecting regional craftsmanship and trade patterns.","narrative":"Faison Cemetery occupies 6.55 acres at the eastern edge of Faison in Duplin County, and its oldest section, under two acres, shelters the graves of the town's founding families beneath magnolias, live oaks and cedars. The first known burial is Henry Faison in 1788, and the ground became the community cemetery in 1892 when Isham R. Faison deeded land to the Faison Cemetery Association. Interments include Thomas Hicks, a militia leader and provincial congress member, William L. Hill, a state militia general and railroad promoter, Bryan Whitfield Herring, a state senator, and John Miller Faison, a United States congressman. Mary Lyde Hicks Williams, a portrait painter, is also buried here. The markers range from early nineteenth-century marble head and footstones to granite obelisks and tablets, including a few signed by a Raleigh monument works. Its collection of markers is regarded as a representative record of funerary art in the coastal plain.","period_of_significance":"1788-1944","architect_builder":null,"architectural_style":null,"criteria":["A","C","D"],"status_note":null,"vacant_flag":null,"machine_generated":true,"model":"claude-haiku-5-5","prompt_version":"v1.1-2026-10-29","generated_at":"2026-10-29 17:11:41.967684-05","source_pdf":"https://s3.amazonaws.com/NARAprodstorage/opastorage/live/99/7176/47717699/content/electronic-records/rg-079/NPS_NC/06000291.pdf"},"photo":null,"district":null,"sources":{"nps_snapshot_date":"2026-05-22","nara_catalog":"https://catalog.archives.gov/id/47717699","wikipedia":"https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faison_Cemetery","wikidata":"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q18389808"},"indexable":true,"url":"https://nationalhistoricalregister.com/north-carolina/duplin-county/faison-cemetery-06000291/"}