Gaines Chapel Cemetery is so named because of its former relation to Gaines Chapel Church, which has since been moved. The church was started as an African-American Church in 1881 by the Gaines family of the Fiery Gizzard Cove near the junction of Battle Creek with the Fiery Gizzard Creek, which flows down the Cumberland Mountain from Tracy City to Battle Creek in the valley. The area around the cemetery became the community of Comfort, which for a time had a post office. The community and the original church no longer exist.

The cemetery is located just off Highway 2, being the former Highway 41, which runs north from Kimball from Highway 72, into "Battle Creek", and exiting that road to the right, to the opposite side of the road from Battle Creek Baptist Church which sits on the left against Interstate 24. This former Highway 41, or locally known as "Battle Creek Road", was once the only major highway connecting, among other places, Chattanooga and Nashville. In about 1972, Interstate 24 was built alongside Highway 41, obliterating it in many spots, especially as it had crossed the Cumberland Mountain passing through Monteagle. Today it is called Highway 2, or by its old familiar name "Battle Creek Road", and does not continue up the mountain from the valley of Battle Creek.

Googleearth shows that the GPS coordinates of 35.100983 -85.735382 would lie in the middle of this cemetery, and it can be clearly seen that Gaines Chapel on the left (north) as you approach the cemeteries from the west is divided by a short space from Gilliam Cemetery to the right (south). There is a small metal sign at the front (west) of each of the two cemeteries.

Gaines Chapel Church was started by William Gaines as both a church and school for African-Americans and was in use from 1881 to 1922. The end of the use of the building came with the establishment of McReynolds School in South Pittsburg for African-Americans in 1922. As described in the next paragraph, a second Methodist Episcopal Church was built in South Pittsburg, and many of the Gaines Chapel congregation had moved to South Pittsburg and merged with that church. According to family history and according to some journals and old church records known to exist in a private collection, it is known that William Gaines gave land for both the churches, and that William S. Hight preached at both churches on alternate Sundays. At least one family member of age old enough to have witnessed it, states the building still stood, but as a vacant building, in Battle Creek for some time after 1922 (There was an incorrect story being passed around that the whole building was moved to become the initial Randolph Methodist Church in 1907, but not so; it was still standing in Battle Creek seen by witnesses). The founding of McReynolds School ended Gaines Chapel's use as a school, and all the family had moved away from Battle Creek in that general time period. The cemetery, which was next to it, was predominantly the Gaines and Beene families' cemetery, with other families buried there who had intermarried with them, and there are still burials occurring there now (presently year 2015).

The histories that have been written about this have not been correctly researched in a few matters. It has been erroneously published in the Jasper Journal in 1997 that in 1881 William Gaines donated land in South Pittsburg, TN on the hill where the old Sears catalogue store stood, now the Colorcraft building on Cedar Avenue below the old McReynolds School. This is incorrect, because the deed cited as the source of that information states it was located in District 10, and both the 1880 and 1900 censuses of Marion Co., TN, being years both before and after the date of the deed, indicate that District 10 was Battle Creek, and that South Pittsburg was never District 10; therefore this deed from Marion County, TN Deed Book N, page 321, dated Feb. 4, 1881, from William Gaines to M. E. Church, the denomination also of the church in Battle Creek, was for land located in Battle Creek. The church that did stand on that hill in South Pittsburg was another Methodist Episcopal Church, which was built in 1892, and which burned in 1905. In 1907 the congregation of that Methodist Episcopal Church and the congregation of Gaines Chapel (Methodist Episcopal) Church merged, and a new church was built in a new location at the corner of Elm Avenue and First Street by Wm. Hight, Sr., with Rev. A. W. Randolph as its pastor, for whom the new church was named. Today this church is known as the Randolph United Methodist Church and is still active and still has Gaines descendants in its membership. Its corner stone bears two dates: August 13, 1892, the date the Methodist Episcopal Church was first built in South Pittsburg, and below that April 14, 1907, the date the church moved to the present building.

There is an old photo published in the Jasper Journal in 1997 showing the students and teacher of the Gaines Chapel School, the chapel also serving as a school. Among others, one of the students was identified as Garfield Gaines (born 1886), son of William and Crissie Gaines. In that photo Garfield appears to be a teenager, and this seems to further prove that the Chapel in Battle Creek was still used as a school for some years after the 1907 merger with the Randolph church.



The original Gaines Chapel Church building cannot be seen today. The deed allocating its land was for 1/4 acre, and this is approximately the size of the entire Gaines Chapel cemetery. Therefore it seems that the church was located on the west end of the cemetery, where the "new" burials are. The older burials were in the back of the cemetery on the east end.

This Gaines family were the descendants apparently of David Gaines, an immigrant from Ireland. In the 1850 census of Marion County TN, he was found in Battle Creek and listed his birth in Ireland in 1785. In the 1880 census of Battle Creek in Marion County, William Gaines, listed as born abt. 1830 in TN, listed that his father was born in Ireland. This would be hardly possible if his father had been black, but David Gaines was a slave owner and listed his birth place as Ireland, being the only Gaines head-of-household in the county before 1870. The first census in which David is listed for Marion Co. was 1830, wherein he was listed as age 50-60, no wife listed, and one male child age 5-under 10, one female child age 5-under 10 and one female child age 10-under 15. He had that year 4 male slaves under age 10, 2 male slaves age 10-under 24, one female slave age under 10 and one female slave age 36-under 55 (which could have been the mother of the Gaines family of this church and cemetery). Of the children not listed as slaves in the 1830 census, if any were white, they either died before adulthood or did not remain in Marion County to be listed as heads of their own households later. It may simply be that David Gaines did not list his mixed race children as slaves. In the 1870 census, all of these, who claimed in 1880 a father born in Ireland, are listed as race mulatto, which means mixed race.

In the 1840 census, all the white males are missing from David Gaines household, and he is listed as age 50-60 again, the same age range as the decade before. There is one white female in the household age 15-under 20, 1 male slave age under 10, 4 male slaves age 10-under 24, 1 female slave age 10-24 and 1 female slave age 36-under 55. Except for any slaves, David Gaines was living alone at age 65 in the 1850 census of Marion County. He was never in another census. He was supposedly buried in Bible cemetery in Battle Creek area on the Fiery Gizzard Creek. His stone as seen today was definitely not placed there at any time near his death, looking too new and having too much information on it to be authentic. Therefore without sources cited for the dates on the stone, the information cannot be trusted. The dates are 1760-Dec. 11, 1864 on the stone, which is in disagreement with every record I have seen concerning him. Beware of stones placed by well-meaning people decades to a century after the death. In this case one certainly cannot use the stone as proof of birth date, and David Gaines did not live to be 104.

One child of David Gaines was William M. Gaines, the founder of Gaines Chapel and Cemetery, born June 29, 1829, and he is buried in this cemetery along with his second wife Crissie A., born Feb. 15, 1849. William M. Gaines first married Luvenia "Venus" Bryson, proven by the death certificates of his sons, Lewis and Lorenzo Gaines. Venus is shown with William in the 1870 census of District 6, Marion Co., TN. Their children born to that time were: (1)Tabitha, b. 1850; (2)Lewis, b. Aug. 27, 1852- d. Oct. 2, 1926- bur. Comfort, TN at Gaines Cem.; (3)Lorenzo Dock (b. Apr. 10, 1858- d. Nov. 8, 1925- bur: Gaines Chapel); (4)Mira E., b. 1860; (5)Rebecca J., b. 1862; (6)Arizona, b. 1867. First wife, Luvenia, evidently died before 1876, and her burial place is unknown.

William M. Gaines was married second to Crissie (MNU- maiden name unknown) Price on March 5, 1876 in Franklin Co., TN, with whom he is living in the 1880 census. There were no new children added to the household in that 1880 census who were not in the 1870 census; therefore, it is clear by the time separation which children belonged to which mother. William and Crissie did have a child later, James A. Garfield Gaines (b. Feb. 13, 1886- d. Mar. 27, 1946, bur: Gaines Chapel).

The 1880 census lists one step-daughter of William that year, meaning that this child was the child of Crissie by a previous marriage. That child's name, according to Leatrice Bagley, was Cora Anton/Anthom Price, b. abt. 1873, and the census-taker in 1880 misspelled her name as Ocoe A. Price, with the correct spelling of Cora's name coming from the birth certificate of her son, Walter Elijah Hightower, b. 1888, wherein George W. Gaines made the statement that he was a cousin. Also the 1900 census lists this same son of Cora in the household of William and Chrissy Gaines as "grandson". Therefore, Crissie's first husband was a Price. Crissie (as "Chryseanthem", possibly misspelled for Chrysanthemum) is seen with her husband, Horace L. Price (b. AL abt. 1835), in the 1870 census at h/h 124/125 in District 10 (Battle Creek) Marion Co., TN. There she is seen with one child, Victorine H. Price, and with a second male there also, Smith Price age 17, who was too old to be her child, making the total of her Price surnamed children to be 2. Cora married Walter Elias Hightower on April 17, 1887 in Marion Co., TN, her death being in about 1897.

Another son of David Gaines was Andrew Jackson Gaines, born abt. 1825, who married Margaret A. Tate (born abt. 1835- d. May 14, 1917), and had the following children: Elizabeth, b. 1852, Comfort M., b. 1856, John, b. 1858. Jackson Gaines' wife Margaret was the daughter of Harriett (MNU) Tate, b. abt. 1812. According to the son's, John Gaines, death certificate, his mother was Jane Clepper and father was "Jack" Gaines, and John was born in 1858. So, Jackson had two wives.

Leatrice Bagley has found two "white" race daughters of David Gaines, being Evaline Isabel (b. 1821?) (md Joseph Taylor) and Allie May Gaines (b. 1819?), with Isabel found later residing in and died in Navarro Co., Texas.

A daughter of David Gaines was Malinda, b. 1831 also listing her father as born in Ireland, whose child was Robert Alexander Gaines, b. 1851, who married Lucy A. Cross/Wooten.

Here is a photo given to me by Sarah (Mitchell) Gaines and used also by permission of the previous owner, Leatrice Bagley (the family historian) portraying the family of Robert Alexander Gaines (son of Malinda Gaines) and his wife Lucy Ann (Cross/Wooten) Gaines dated March 20, 1905:




This is the core of the family associated with Gaines Chapel Cemetery. More details are listed with each person's grave photo.