LOCAL * From staff reports

Mercy Seat Baptist Church has donated money to the Beulah Cemetery Restoration Committee and hopes other churches will do the same.

The congregation responded to a May 1 letter asking area churches for donations to continue the maintenance of the historic cemetery.

Beulah was established in 1884 by Tabernacle No. 19 Independent Order of Brothers and Sisters of Love and Charity. More than 5,000 graves are in the cemetery and date from as early as the cemetery’s inception.

The all-black cemetery is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Included in those buried there are Rosa A. Temple and G.M. McIntyre, both Vicksburg educators, and Robert Banks Marshall, the city’s first black postal employee.

The land on Old Jackson Road was purchased for $1,000 and originally totalled 52 acres. The property is now 14.5 acres.

The Beulah Cemetery Restoration Committee was allocated $50,000 by the Legislature in 1999, but that money has been spent and the cemetery has lapsed into disrepair again.

Work needed on the cemetery includes new fencing, completion of the metal arch entrance way, paved roadways, equipment and landscaping.

Cable break blamed for Internet interruption

A cable break between Vicksburg and Jackson was blamed Monday night and this morning for an interruption in much of the Internet service in the area this morning.

A spokesman for Vicksburg Video said technicians this morning were attempting to correct problems first reported at about 10 Monday night.