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.