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A Gazetteer for the United States and Canada
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Our Genealogy Helper

Introduction ...

So far, we found very little information about Napoleon. The little that we've found leads us believe that the community is historic.<1>

We've added Napoleon to our Gazetteer with the hope that we can develop more information. If you can help us with Napoleon, please Contact Us.

We have a couple of goals for our Gazetteer:

  • That it be a tool which helps us with planning our trips.
  • We're trying to shape our Gazetteer as a tool to help us understand the community in which our ancestors lived, the community that was part of their daily lives.
  • On our trips, we try to visit those places where our ancestors left their footprints.

By learning about Napoleon (and the surrounding area) during the time that our ancestors lived, we hope to have a better understanding of both their community and its relationship to their lifes. We hope that this tool helps to give us an insight into their world.

As we add data and organize our Gazetteer to help with our family research, we will be adding to this our Genealogical Helper for Napoleon. While we don't have information that is specific to any given person or family, we intend to expand our understanding about where and how people lived.

Name Variations for Napoleon ...

When searching records, keep in mind that names and their spelling can change over time. Our sources include documents like maps, railroad schedules, Travel, Express and Shipping Guides. Many of these documents date from the 1800's and it's common to find spelling differences.

In past government published Postal Guides, Napoleon was referred to as Napoleon Courthouse.

You might be interested in other communities that are also named Napoleon. More information can be found on our Tidbits & Trivia Page for Napoleon.

If you have information about these names (such as the reason for the change, date of change, the origin of the name), please Contact Us.

For more information about how community names might have been affected by the Board of Geographic Names (BGN), see our page about Placename Rules.

Neighboring Counties ...

When searching for family records, we have frequently made the mistake of not checking the neighboring counties.

For example, we have great-grandparents who lived in the southeast corner of their home county. During their lives, most doctors were in the next county to the east. Almost all of the nearby churches and cemeteries were in the county to the south.

So when searching for records, we had our best success by looking in neighboring counties instead of the county in which they lived:  their home county contained property and probate records; the county to the east contained birth and death records; the county to the south contained their burial records. If we hadn't included the neighboring counties, we would have missed many valuable sources of information.

If you're in a similar situation, we hope that the following information helps.

Although our information shows that the community of Napoleon is historic, it would have been located within present day Desha County.

To see how the shape of Arkansas' counties may have changed over time, we recommend the Atlas of Historical County Boundaries.

The following counties adjoin and form the boundaries of Desha County: Arkansas, Chicot, Drew, Lincoln, Phillips & Bolivar (MS).

Below are the counties that are near Napoleon. For each of these counties, we show a sample of those communities that are closest to Napoleon:

  • Desha County     (The home county of Napoleon)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Napoleon, with the one closest to Napoleon listed first.
    • Kelso
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
    • Rohwer
      (11 miles [17.7 km] to the west)
    • Watson
      (12 miles [19.3 km] to the northwest)
    • Arkansas City
      (15 miles [24.1 km] to the southwest)
      • Arkansas City is located in Desha County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Arkansas City
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 310 people
    • McArthur
      (16 miles [25.7 km] to the southwest)
    • Pea Ridge
      (17 miles [27.4 km] to the northwest)
    • Snow Lake
      (18 miles [29 km] to the north)
      • Snow Lake is located in Desha County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Snow Lake
    • McGehee
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the southwest)
    • Hopedale ‑ Historic
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the west)
      • Hopedale is located in Desha County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Hopedale
    • Reed
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the west)
      • Reed is located in Desha County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Reed
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 146 people
    • Pickens
      (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
      • Pickens is located in Desha County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Pickens
    • Dumas
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the west)
  • Arkansas County
  • Chicot County
  • Drew County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Napoleon, with the one closest to Napoleon listed first.
    • Tillar
      (22 miles [35.4 km] to the west)
      • Tillar is located in Drew County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Tillar
      • Population from the 2020 Census: 210 people
    • Winchester
      (23 miles [37 km] to the west)
    • Selma
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the west)
  • Lincoln County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Napoleon, with the one closest to Napoleon listed first.
    • South Bend ‑ Historic
      (27 miles [43.5 km] to the northwest)
      • South Bend is located in Lincoln County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for South Bend
    • Gould
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northwest)
  • Phillips County
    • The following are listed by their distance from Napoleon, with the one closest to Napoleon listed first.
    • Crumrod
      (24 miles [38.6 km] to the north)
      • Crumrod is located in Phillips County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Crumrod
    • Mellwood
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the north)
      • Mellwood is located in Phillips County
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Mellwood
  • Bolivar County (MS)
  • Coahoma County (MS)
    • The following are listed by their distance from Napoleon, with the one closest to Napoleon listed first.
    • Sunflower Landing
      (29 miles [46.7 km] to the northeast)
    • Africa ‑ Historic
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northeast)
      • Africa is located in Coahoma County (MS)
      • Jump to our Gazetteer entry for Africa
    • Roundaway
      (30 miles [48.3 km] to the northeast)
  • Sunflower County (MS)
  • Washington County (MS)

For an expanded list of the communities that are closest to Napoleon, see our County-by-County Page for Napoleon.

Cemeteries Near Napoleon ...

Below are cemeteries that are in the vicinity of Napoleon.

This is a new section and is likely to have errors. If you find an error, such as a missing cemetery or we have the wrong name, please let us know. If you know of them, we would also appreciate learning about previous or alternate names.

Although we don't have the information ourselves, if you need information about a burial or interment, photos, transcripts, how to contact the cemetery or local authorities, please visit our list of websites on our Genealogy Helper Page for Napoleon - one of the links might be able to help.

If not found below, our Cemetery List for Napoleon covers a larger area, with the cemeteries listed in alphabetical order.

The following cemeteries are listed based on their distance from Napoleon, with the one closest to Napoleon listed first.

  • Anns Tabernacle Cemetery
    (3 miles [4.8 km] to the northeast)
  • Clark Cemetery
    (4 miles [6.4 km] to the southeast)
  • Mt. Olive Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the southeast)
  • Beulah Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
  • Scotland Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the east)
  • New Hope Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
  • Pleasant Grove Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the northeast)
  • Rosedale Cemetery
    (5 miles [8 km] to the north)
  • Waldon Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the east)
  • Turner Cemetery
    (6 miles [9.7 km] to the northwest)
  • Martin Cemetery
    (7 miles [11.3 km] to the east)
  • Polk - Royal Cemetery
    (8 miles [12.9 km] to the southeast)
  • Continue List   (180 more) ...
    • Old Stone Cemetery
      (9 miles [14.5 km] to the south)
    • Speckter Cemetery
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)
    • Parthenia Cemetery
      (10 miles [16.1 km] to the south)

Nearby Communities in 1895 ...

We've built the following list with information that came from an Atlas published by Rand McNally in 1895. The Atlas had details such as the population of the community (which appears to have come from the 1890 Census) and whether there was a post office and/or railroad service available. We also indicate if the community no longer exists and is now historic.

While we didn't find Napoleon in the Atlas, the following 1895 communities would have been found near the current location of Napoleon.

These communities are listed based on their distance from Napoleon, with the one closest to Napoleon listed first.

We've also created an expanded list of communities that existed in the 1890's and were located in the area around Napoleon. See our List of 1890's Communities around Napoleon.

Newspapers Published in the Vicinity of Napoleon ...

An ongoing effort between the Library of Congress and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has resulted in the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP).

To share their results, the partnership has created the Chronicling America website. The goal of this partnership is to assemble a database about the current and historic newspapers of the United States. This includes a growing collection of scanned images from selected papers. All of it available to the public on their website.

Using information that we've taken from the Chronicling America website, we've identified 29 newspapers that have been published in the area around Napoleon.

We have organized these newspapers into two lists:

  • A Local Newspaper List - focusing on the papers published in the immediate area of Napoleon. There are actually two parts to this list - papers printed in the immediate area of Napoleon and those printed in the larger area surrounding Napoleon.
  • An Extended Newspaper List - a longer list, sorted by paper name and containing those papers published within 24 miles [38.6 km]<3> of Napoleon.

Websites to Help With Your Genealogy Research ...

When we do our genealogical research, we start with the websites from Cyndi's List, FamilySearch and Genealogy Trails. These websites offer the information directly or else point to where you can find it. Their information is open to everyone.

To help you get started, the following links will take you to the pages that are relevant to Napoleon:

Footnotes ...

<1>We use the term 'Historic' broadly and it generally means that the community no longer exists. However, it can also mean that the community might still exist, but was significantly larger or had a more 'official' existence in the past than it does now. Unfortunately our sources of data have proven to be unreliable. If you can provide us with more specific information about Napoleon, please let us know so that we can improve our accuracy.
<2>While we're fans and frequent users of TripAdvisor, you should know that we're also members of the TripAdvisor affiliate program.
<3>Our distances are not driving distances, but are calculated as a 'straight-line' (or point-to-point) distance. A straight line distance ignores things like rivers, canyons, lakes, et cetera - it's truly a line from Point A (ie- Napoleon) to Point B. In other words: 'As the crow flies'.