Feagin Cemetery

Aaron (1811-1863) and Sarah (Merrill) (1824-1869) Feagin came from Alabama to the Bear Creek community in 1857. The Feagins paid $10,000 in gold for 2,820 acres of land and built a house and store. Their daughter Susannah and her husband John A. Handley operated a store in nearby Moscow; John Handley served in the Civil War. In 1868 the Handley family moved to Bear Creek to help the widowed Sarah raise the younger Feagin Children.

John A. Handley, who had been postmaster in Moscow, applied for a Bear Creek Post Office in 1891 and the town was renamed for his youngest daughter, Hortense. In 1905 the Handleys deeded two acres of the Feagin land, including the burial plots of Aaron and Sarah, for a public cemetery. Their son Jesse and his wife Ada (Rice) Handley added 1.5 more acres to expand the cemetery in 1926. Veterans of several major American and international conflicts are interred here, as are many early Bear Creek and Hortense families. A 1997 count revealed more than 200 marked graves in Feagin Cemetery. Many more are unmarked; most of these are likely to be those of infants. Five graves, those of the five children of Jessie E. Parrish, bear witness to the difficulties of pioneer life. Feagin Cemetery continues to serve the Hortense community. (1998).