In a field a couple of hundred yards southwest from the ruins of old Fort Towson [military post], is a grove of trees and in that grove is the family cemetery of the Gooding family. Located approximately two miles east and north of the city of Fort Towson, Oklahoma.

On April 30, 1938 Hazel B. Greene, Field Worker for the Indian Pioneer Project-Choctaw County, copied the inscriptions on all of the tombstones there except one on which the elements had totally erased the inscription. There are only four with inscriptions.

Her observations: There are impressions there that look like old graves and I have been told that they are graves from which the bodies of soldiers were removed and interred elsewhere. As nearly as I could, I counted twenty-three of those and there might have been others, they were so close together. The undergrowth was so thick that we could not get through it all. The graves all extended from the northwest to the southeast. 

The tombstone of Esther Gooding was clear off the grave and the grave looked as if it had been excavated.

There had at one time been a stone wall enclosing the three Gooding graves but it has crumbled and the rocks are pretty well scattered.

Grave Markers recorded by Hazel Greene:

·         Louisa M. Willard, died 1845

·         G.C. Gooding, died 1851

·         Esther Gooding, died 1863

·         Sarah Gooding, died 1855

Source: Indian and Pioneer Historical Collection (Ancestry.com), Cemeteries-Choctaw-Gooding #13768