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Location: Behind the lot on 727 Greengate Road, it is between Greengate and Kendrick's Creek Road

Description: This is a listing for graves in the Duncan Graveyard, located behind the lot on 727 Greengate Road. This small graveyard, the final resting place for possibly 8 or 10 individuals, is between Greengate and Kendrick's Creek Road. It is best accessed from behind the apartment buildings in between 942 and 956 Kendrick's Creek Road. It is on a high bank which resulted from the cut-away of land to make room for the apartments on Kendrick's Creek.

Burial records: 3

Recorder: Contributed by Elmer A. Greene, MD

USGS Map: Sullivan Gardens

GPS Location: 36.47316, -82.515427

Elevation: 1470 ft.

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Additional Information

The graveyard is very overgrown with weeds, briars, honeysuckle vines, and trees, and has not been tended to in what appears to be many years. It has been vandalized, with one major stone missing. One stone has been broken on both upper corners, and the pieces are missing.

At least two graves have been marked at the head and foot by simple field stones.

Contributed by:
Elmer A. Greene, M.D., P.O. Box 5228, Kingsport, TN 37663-0228
(Owner of property at 727 Greengate Road)

There is one good, non-vandalized stone standing, an obelisk with inscriptions on three of the four sides.

Sarah Ellis
Wife of J.P. Duncan
Born July 8, 1837
Died August 11, 1870
Farewell dear mother
Sweet thy rest
*********************

Myra J. Duncan
Born August 2, 1870
Died Sept. 15, 1870
Little Flower of Love
That Blossomed but to Die
***************************

A Masonic Emblem at
Top of Stone

J.P. Duncan
Born June 18, 1835
Died June 22, 1900
How sad and Desolate
Our Home Bereft of Thee
***************************

There’s a large base stone nearby and one can see an outline where a larger stone has been on top of it, but the larger portion is missing. No inscriptions at all on the base.

There is one large factory-cut stone slab lying on top of a grave, but no markings at all can be seen. Believe this slab was standing upright as the head of a grave. It’s possible that by lying flat for a long period of time weather has completely eroded or erased the engravings. It is slate-like in appearance, though it has been professionally cut, and the surface may have just flaked off.

The only other stone is one similar in size to the one that is lying on the top of a grave and it is the stone with the corners broken off. Here’s all that can be read:

(Missing corner)ODY DUNCA(Missing corner)
Born Jan. 16, 180
Died July 20, 1846

There is an uprooted, small footmarker with the initials MJD carved in it. I assume this is the footmarker for Myra, the child who died in 1870.

The 1860 census records of Sullivan County for District # 14, the Colonial Heights area shows:

A J.P. Duncan, 23
Sarah, 23

There were no children in the family; so one can assume that they had been married only a short time.

The 1870 Sullivan County census shows:

A J.P. Duncan, ( male), age 35 and a farmer.
Sarah, 34
William B.,  9
James E.,  3
Mary E., 7

Next door to this family in 1870 was

M.M. Duncan (male), age 34
Rebecca, 35
Nancy, 14
Sarah, 12
Josephine, 9
Mattie, 7
Alfred, 5
Alice, 3
John, 1

I believe J.P. and M.M. were brothers, and the sons of Alfred Duncan, who was in both the 1830 and 1840 Sullivan county censuses. Here’s how the family is listed in 1850: Alfred Duncan, 46; Margaret, 36; Emeline, 33; Merriah, 22; Madison, 19; John, 15; Edmon, 12; Alfred 10; and Samuel, 7.

I was unable to identify the parents of Sarah Ellis. She may have been the daughter of Guy, age 38, and his wife Margaret, age 30, listed with 7 children, including a Sarah A., age 14, in the 1850 census of Jefferson county, but this is purely guesswork.

Sarah Ellis Duncan must have died from complications of childbirth, because she gave birth to Myra J. Duncan on 8-2-1870 and died 9 days later. Myra J., the child to whom she had given, birth lived only for about a month and a half and died on 9-15-1870.

From my searching of the census records, I was unable to get any clue as to who the ??ODY DUNCA(N?) might be. We know the individual was born between 1800 and 1809 and died in 1846, but that is all we know.

I listed one tombstone that had the top corners broken off so that all one could read in the name was ODY DUNCA. Since sending that note I have found on the Familysearch.com website, searching for Alfred Duncan, that an Alfred Duncan married a Jody Douglas in Washington co., TN on 6 January, 1823. This makes me believe that the grave is that of Jody Douglas Duncan, the wife of Alfred Duncan. Since she is buried there, I suspect that one of the other graves is that of Alfred Duncan, possibly the one with the identical type of cut stone with no readable inscription. One of the other graves could possibly be the grave of Alfred’s second wife, Margaret, but this is speculative. EAG