Avon Cemetery

This rural cemetery is home to an old well at its center and one of Arkansas' most enduring ghost legends about a mother and child.

Avon Cemetery sits in rural Sevier County approximately sixty minutes north of Texarkana, near the small town of DeQueen, Arkansas. It is one of ten cemeteries in the region, a quiet burial ground surrounded by the rolling hills of the Ouachita foothills. The cemetery once adjoined the old Avon Church, and at the rear of the property — near where the church formerly stood — there was an underground well that served the congregation and surrounding community.

The legend that has made Avon Cemetery one of the most talked-about haunted places in southwestern Arkansas centers on a tragedy at that well. According to the story passed down through generations in DeQueen, a young mother was drawing water from the well and needed both hands to raise the heavy bucket. She set her baby on the stone ledge of the well while she worked. The infant slipped and fell into the well, drowning before the mother could reach it. The tale has been told and retold across Sevier County for decades, becoming one of the region's most persistent folk legends.

Visitors to Avon Cemetery have long reported that if you drop a rock into the well at night, you can hear the faint but unmistakable sound of a baby crying rising from the depths. The well has since been covered over — local residents remember when it was sealed — but the stories persist. Beyond the well legend, an apparition of a woman has been seen running through the cemetery, apparently heading toward the location where the well once stood, searching desperately for her lost child. Her figure appears in frantic motion before dissolving among the headstones. Other reports describe a general sense of unease that settles over the cemetery after dark, particularly near the site of the old church.

Paranormal investigators have visited the site over the years. At least one EVP recording session captured what was interpreted as unexplained laughter — a recording titled "Avon Cemetery EVP Recording of Laugh" circulated among Arkansas paranormal enthusiasts. The small rural cemetery does not have formal visiting hours or any commercial ghost tour operation, and locals who shared their experiences with regional media have emphasized that visitors should be respectful of the burial ground. The well may be covered and the church long gone, but the story of the mother and her baby endures as one of the Arkansas Ouachitas' most haunting folk legends.