TOMBSTONE INSCRIPTIONS FROM BLACK CEMETERIES
IN BENTON COUNTY, TENNESSEE
(Revised Edition with Maps)
Compiled by Jonathan K. T. Smith
Copyright, Jonathan K. T. Smith, 1995
CEMETERIES AND MAPS
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CALVARY CEMETERY
Located in east Camden, Tennessee on the west side of Wren Avenue about a mile from court square. Cemetery situated at the back (west) of Toles Chapel C. M. E. Church. Several unmarked graves here.
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ANTOINE CLARK JOE TAYLOR VEORA M. SIMON VERNLL BOYD DARY ONEL CRAWLEY WILLIAM J. BOGGS Double tombstone: UVONNE BOYD E. A. BOYD WILLIAM RAY TRAVIS VERNIEE DEE JONES Double tombstone: JAMES COLLINS MEATTA DONLOE |
RUTH WOODS DOROTHY MAE BATES MELVIN TRAVIS ELDRIDGE TRAVIS SAMUEL MOORE DRILLON STRICKLAND OANNA BOMAR BRIAN SCOTT MOODY EMMA BOYD ALMON BOGGS BENJAMON PETTIGREW JAMES THARPE Double tombstone: |
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Double tombstone: SHERRY HUDSON, Daughter ALVIS GREEN MABLE R. CRAWLEY NOLAN CRAWLEY BROKSY TRAVIS KAYLA SMOTHERS McCLURE JAMES T. McCLURE MARY FORD MELVIN BONDS CLIFFORD W. JONES Also buried here: NOLA BELL TRAVIS LUELLA GAITERS CHRISTINE BATES JAMES ROWSEY |
DONNIE L. HUDSON OSHEA DYWAN HUDSON ALICE CRAWLEY NAOMI GREENE CHARLESTON A. CRAWLEY OCIE TRAVIS OURA RICHMOND PERKINS, JR. JAMES C. EASLEY Double tombstone: JAMES C. HARRIS, SR. ELMER RUSHING WADE E. LAWS, JR. LONNIE BOYD ELNORA ROWSEY |
Click here for 2004 update of Calvary Cemetery.
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OLD TOLES CHAPEL CEMETERY
Located in east Camden on the wooded hill-side called Dobson's Hill at the-southeast junction of Stigall Street and Lumber Street. There are reportedly several hundred unmarked graves in this burial ground, this having long been the principal cemetery for black persons in the Camden area for several generations. Several years ago the site was "cleared" and some of the tombstones were moved around and not replaced at the appropriate graves.
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HENRY MONTGOMERY Double tombstone: CHARLES E. BOYD F. J. |
ELBERT NANCE LELIA wife of Jim DONLOE A broken tombstone with only the base and lower part of tombstone intact; perhaps this was the tombstone of SOLOMON DONLOW (Aug. 15, 1837-June 17, 1910) which the writer took the inscription from in 1975. ISAIAH D. /DONLOE/ (no dates) ANN D. /DONLOE/ (no dates) NETTlE McC. (no dates) |
Tombstone of JOSH and PHYLIS SIMONS
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FRIENDSHIP C.M.E. CHURCH CEMETERY
Located in south Benton County on the south side of Manley's Chapel Road about 2.5 miles northeast of McIllwain, Tennessee; burial area to the south and west of the church.
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Double tombstone: Double tombstone: |
Double tombstone: |
The cornerstone of this block church states that the building was completed in July 1989. Officials: JAMES JENNINGS, VERNIE JENNINGS, LORRAINE MENZIES, Rev. J. E. ROBINSON, Elder LOUIS T. PURHAM, Bishop JOHN M. EXUM, ERNEST MENZIES, ANTHONY MENZIES, HARRIS MENZIES, Rev. GENEVA CHERRY, Elder JAMES E. BROWN, Bishop WILLIAM H. GRAVES. This, in conjunction with Masonry Highland Lodge 269.
Click here for a 2004 update of Friendship C.M.E. Church Cemetery.
MOORE CHAPEL CEMETERY
Located in south Benton County on the north side of Manley's Chapel Road about 2.5 miles northeast of McIllwain, Tennessee. Almost directly across the road from Friendship C. M. E. Church and cemetery. Numerous unmarked graves here.
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JOHN L. MOORE LUCY, dau. of Perry & Harriett PERVATT EUGENIA (Jennie) JENNINGS JERRY ALMA MENZIES LEE A. JENNINGS MAGGIE M. MENZIES |
POLEY, son of J. L. & Ida MOORE BIRTHA, dau. of R. H. & Dora SHURLEY WILLIAM McKINLEY JENNINGS WILMA E. PARKER GLADYS M. PARKER |
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Double tombstone: HALLIE MOORE MATTIE BROWNING JOE PAUL HAYES ALLEN W. MOORE Miss JERRY MENZIES Double tombstone: ROXIE MENZIES LULA MOORE CORDILIA M. McHANEY Mr. H. MOORE JAKE GOSSETT WILMA E. MENZIES PARKER MELVILLE T. MENZIES |
BYNUM MENZIES H. L. MOORE HESTER L. TURNER ORBAN D. MENZIES CHRISTINE MOORE HOOPER HALLIE C. HOOPER TINA INEZ DONLOE Mr. WILLIE T. MENZIES DELLA HARRIS MOSE MOORE HOMER HAYS ALICE S. MENZIES DWIGHT E. TURNER Double tombstone: |
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TWO TOMBSTONES AT MOORE CHAPEL
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JOHN L. MOORE |
LUCY PERVATT with verse, |
Click here for a 2004 update of Moore Chapel Cemetery.
WILLIAMS GROVE CEMETERY
Located in northwest Benton County almost eight miles north of Camden via U.S. Highway 641, Wright Road and Williams Grove/Rocky Ridge Road. Situated at the end of Williams Cemetery Road about .3 mile north from Williams Grove/Rocky Ridge Road. Williams Grove Baptist Church located just east of the beginning of Williams Cemetery Road. Several unmarked graves here.
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Double tombstone: HATTIE MAT WILLIAMA/S/ GILBERT WILLIAMS AARON KELLEY GERTRUDE L. KELLEY, Mother FRED L. THARPE JAMES WILLIAMS |
ROGER THOMAS WILLIAMS In Remembrance of HORACE M. WILLIAMS TWYLA A. LAWS NORA L. KELLEY, Mother GEORGE W. THARPE ODIE LEE THARPE |
Click here for 2004 update of this Williams Grove Cemetery.
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STRICKLAND CEMETERY
Located just south of Camden's southern corporation boundary on the south side of Timothy Drive. Approach to burial area over a short gravel road leading southwest from Timothy Drive.
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ORA ANN STRICKLAND HOLDER, Mother BERNICE M. STRICKLAND CRAIG, Sister LONNIE PEARL STRICKLAND BOGGS, Sister PEARLINE HOLDER REED TOMMY L. HOLDER There is a Williams and Rawls Funeral Home Marker for Pearlie M. Strickland, giving her nickname: |
JAMES G. HOLDER ARGUS CRAIG MARVIN STRICKLAND Double tombstone: |
WYLY CEMETERY
Located on the south side of a neck of land north of Birdsong Creek in south-central Benton County. An abandoned graveyard, this cemetery sited in a wooded area was the family burying ground of JAMES WYLY (1799-1857), his family and their bondsfolk and later blacks buried here also. It was reported in James L. Douthat's KENTUCKY LAKE RESERVOIR CEMETERIES (Signal Mountain, Tenn., 1988), volume 2, page 7 (based on official Tennessee Valley Authority records).
Names of known blacks buried here:
Jennie Donninls* informed TVA that JOHN MENZIES, MARY MENZIES, WALTER MENZIES, CHARLES MENZIES and GEORGIA ANN MENZIES (although spelled Menzie in this publication).
JOHN, MARY, WALTER and CHARLES MENZIES were given as siblings of the informant; records reveal that these were children of JAMES MENZIES, born in April 1848. Jenny was in fact EUGENIA, another of his children. GEORGIA ANN MENZIES was given as "daughter" to the informant.
These graves were on an elevated location and therefore were not relocated or innundated when the Kentucky Lake was impounded here in September 1944. See elsewhere in this publication, genealogical notes on the Menzies family (Pages 65-66).
*This was properly, Jennie Menzies Jennings. Interview, Jonathan Smith with Ernest Menzies, December 15, 1997.
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CITY CEMETERY, CAMDEN
Located about a mile west of court square in Camden, Tennessee on the south side of U.S. Highway 70. This was for many years the principal cemetery for the city of Camden and remains one of the principal cemeteries for this municipality. Only one black person is known to have been buried there, Miss Easter Wyly.
Buried in the YARBROUGH family lot Miss Easter Wyly with a small upright tombstone reading:
EASTER
Age 73 Yrs.
At Rest
Easter Wyly was born June 23, 1850 to one of the slaves of Christopher K. Wyly, a prosperous Benton County merchant who lived in Camden; her birth date was entered by the attending physician, Dr. Milton L. Travis, in his day-book (although not by name). In later life she only knew that she had been born in the spring of 1850, perhaps guessing at May as her birth month. (1900 U.S. Census, Benton County, Civil District 5, #119). She was the female child, aged about six months old in C. K. Wyly's census slave roster in December 1850 and the ten year old in the same man's census slave roster in 1860.
After the Civil War she was left to fend for herself and was taken as a servant into the household of Isaac C. Yarbrough and his wife, Mary Ann. He was Camden's first train agent and a local merchant. She was nurse to two generations of youth in that household. She was an industrious person, a lively talker; never married and requested that at her death her remains be buried in the Yarbrough lot in the Camden cemetery to lie among those whom she had loved and been loved by in life; her request was honored. The small tombstone with her approximate age was erected at her grave. Mrs. Estelle Yarbrough Owen (1901-1997) of Jackson, Tennessee told Jonathan Smith considerably about her well-loved black nurse, many of her own memories having been corroborated by the memories of other people who had known Miss Easter Wyly.
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JERRY'S GRAVE
Located in north Benton County about 7½ miles east of the gazebo in the center of Big Sandy, Tennessee via Faxon Road; about 2 miles east of Faxon, Tennessee on Boat Dock Road. Grave located on high level ground in a pine stand about .7 mile east from Wynn Cemetery Road and Boat Dock Road juncture, on west side of the latter road at the first crossroads from its juncture with Wynn Cemetery Road. Metal sign reading "Jerrys Grave" presently "locates" gravesite. Approach is over a rough gravel road.
The late Mr. Clifford Barker of Camden, Tennessee marked this well-known and solitary grave with rocks many years ago. On August 16, 1993 the Benton County Genealogical Society placed a small commemorative marker at this grave which reads:
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JERRY'S GRAVE |
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Length of grave is covered with crushed gray gravel.
Tradition has it that JERRY was a youthful slave of Anderson Lashlee, a prominent Benton County merchant and farmer who owned White Oak Island in the Tennessee River near Point Mason where JERRY lived. When Lashlee's daughter, Elizabeth, married Holden Rushing in April of 1855 JERRY was given as a wedding gift to the bride. Although not far away he pined for his former home and was allowed to go back "home." Years later, he requested that at his death his body be buried at a high point above the river and creek bottoms as he did not want his remains covered during flood times.
See, "Jerry's Grave" written by Clifford L. Barker in the May 9, 1963 issue of THE CAMDEN CHRONICLE. Among Barker's remarks were, "It is further handed down that every one in the country-side was serenaded with loudly sung spirituals as the frosty topped Jerry rode his trusty mule across country with the weeks supply of shelled corn to the gristmill."
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BARKER FAMILY CEMETERY
At a point about 3 miles south of the underpass on Highway 69-A, in Camden, and on this highway turn west onto an abandoned access road, walk about .1 mile west then turn into thicketty woods to the cemetery.
Zachary Barker (c. 1792-1866) settled on his farm in Benton County in 1819, being a native of Wake County, North Carolina. Several generations of the white Barker family lived on this farm before it was sold out of their ownership.
In his 1859 will Zachary Barker named his black servants, EDY, JANE, SUSAN, MINNY, SARAH A., MISSOURI, CHINA, VINY, ELIZA, CAROLINE, JACK, MARY, HANNAH, DICK, HARRY HILL, LOGAN, ROSEY, NED and LACEY. (Benton Co. Will Book 1855-1916, page 394)
The Barkers were generally on good terms with their black folk, one of whom was especially appreciated — MARY, who had been bought by Zachary Barker when she was about 13 years old in January 1833. (Benton County Deed Book 1836-1843, page 52) She had been born in North Carolina. "Aunt" MARY BARKER continued to reside, a faithful servant, with the Barkers and died on the homeplace, then owned by Zachary Barker's son, Briggs Barker, an aged person, February 7, 1898. (CAMDEN CHRONICLE, February 11, 1898) She was buried in the slave section of the Barker family graveyard about 350 yards northwest of the old log Barker residence.
It is not now known how many slaves were buried in this graveyard but family tradition (through the late Irl Reuben Barker, principally) accounts for some eight black graves here.
Note:
There are several instances of black burials in or near white family graveyards in Benton County, at least reportedly so, but at this late date unless there are strong corroborating evidences in which this is reported in specific cases, caution is advised in accepting such claims.
KENTUCKY LAKE RESERVOIR CEMETERIES
Remains of persons buried in many cemeteries near the Tennessee River were removed and buried elsewhere or were covered by the waters of the Tennessee River when the Kentucky Lake was impounded in 1944. KENTUCKY LAKE RESERVOIR CEMETERIES, by James L. Douthat (Signal Mountain, Tenn., 1988), volume 2, page 7, notes that cemeteries numbers 465, 466, as ASKEW slave cemeteries, were identified as black burial grounds but no one living at the time could remember the names of any of those persons buried in these two cemeteries. This having been the case, the remains of persons buried here were left intact.
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BENTON COUNTY TENNESSEE MAP I.
[HTML editor's note: The following maps have been copied/reduced several times. Road names are often unreadable even if the images are enlarged. Click here to download a good clear Benton County road map from the Tennessee Department of Transportation web site (pdf, 3.3 meg).]
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1. Friendship Cemetery |
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BENTON COUNTY TENNESSEE MAP II.
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1. Camden Cemetery |
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BENTON COUNTY TENNESSEE MAP III.
1 Jerry's Grave
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