Monroe (Munroe) Cemetery is an abandoned cemetery in the middle of the woods near Troy, North Carolina. Detailed directions to the cemetery are given below. Getting to the cemetery does require hiking over a mile in a wooded area. The cemetery was once surrounded by a wire fence but it is now twisted and fallen. There appear to be two rows of graves within the fence with possibly six to eight graves per row. Five graves are clearly marked with another having had a marker but the top has been removed with only the lettering "filled" left on the stone. Several graves are marked only with field stones. Having researched the names on the markers on ancestry.com it appears to indicate that the family of Malcolm A. Monroe and his wife Martha Pemberton Monroe are buried there along with three of their children to include sons John T. Monroe, George H. Monroe, and Malcolm A. Monroe, Jr. leading one to believe that this was a family cemetery. The death records of John and George reveal that they were to be buried at Monroe Cemetery and were the children of Malcolm and Martha. Although spelled Monroe on the markers the family was sometimes listed as Munroe on census records.
Directions
Head north out of Troy on Highway 134 to Okeeweemee Road. Take the right to Okeeweemee Road and drive about .5 miles to the Roy J. Maness Nature Preserve which has signage. Take a left at the nature preserve Drive to the end of the road at the nature preserve where there is parking at the reservoir lake. The walk to the cemetery is about 1.1 miles from the reservoir lake and requires hiking through the forest. Walk out the paved walkway at the reservoir until it turns to grass and goes around the lake to the right. Instead of continuing to go around the lake you will take a slight left that goes through an opening in the trees where the trees are marked with orange trail paint. Follow the trail to the old dam at the end of this section of the trail. At the old dam go left and follow the trail along the water. The trail will take you under the bridge on Okeeweemee Road and you will continue to follow the orange blazed trail until you come to a train trestle. Go under the trestle and take an immediate left into the woods. Follow alongside the train tracks for about 300 feet. The cemetery will be on your right in the woods near the train tracks. If you go onto the train tracks you can see where the tracks go over Glen Road down the tracks to the left. The section where the tracks meet Glen road is not that far from the cemetery but there is no easy way to access the cemetery from that junction. If one parked on Glen road and followed the train tracks to the cemetery one would have to walk on an active train track that has a high trestle before arriving at the cemetery. If one parked at the train tracks on Glen Road and followed the tracks to the creek and avoided the trestle one would still have to go down a steep gully and cross the creek which during rainy times can be turbulent. Therefore, the best route is the nature trail from the nature preserve with the directions given above.