The summer of 1821 sorely tried the hearts of the sturdy settlers in and about Atlas. That was a sickly season and scarcely a family but followed some of its members to the newly made cemetery, until over one-half the entire population were numbered with the dead. The prevailing cause of the visitation of such a calamity to the settlers was the malaria emanating from the vegetable decay of the newly broken prairie and the decomposition of immense quantities of fish in the ponds below the town. The victims of this dreadful malady were laid in coffins made from bass-wood puncheons, hollowed out and consigned to earth in a graveyard near Franklin's first location, and about 400 years west of Shinn's. The bones and dust of 80 persons now lie buried there, and at present there is not a stone or head-board, or any signs whatever of its being a cemetery. There was no physician nearer than Louisiana during this scourge, and with this fact, and taking into consideration the poor facilities the settlers had for providing for and nursing the sick, it remains no wonder that so many died.