As many of my fellow taphophiles (cemetery enthusiasts) can attest, road trips mean stopping by at least one cemetery. If we have time (and an understanding partner), we try to sneak in more.

Last October, my husband invited me to join him as he attended a retreat of his alma mater Oglethorpe University’s board of trustees. The retreat was held at the Lodge and Spa at Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Ga., about 75 miles southwest of Atlanta.

The Callaway Gardens/Warm Springs area holds special memories for me. My family moved to Georgia in 1973. When family from Ohio would come to visit us, we inevitably took them to Callaway Gardens or the Little White House at nearby Roosevelt State Park. I have many pictures of picnics with family, visits to the Ida Cason Callaway Memorial Chapel. I had a chance to revisit it on this trip!

Several retreat attendees talked about getting a massage at the spa but I knew I’d enjoy a cemetery hop more (as would my wallet). While my husband was in a meeting, I headed to Chipley Cemetery for an hour or so.

The town of Chipley was incorporated in 1882 following the extension of the Columbus and Rome Railroad a mile north of the village of Hood. Hood was renamed Chipley after Col. William Dudley Chipley, a partner in promotion of the railroad. Col. Chipley is buried in Linwood Cemetery in Columbus, Ga. The name was changed again in 1958 to Pine Mountain when Callaway Gardens opened.

Many locals still call the cemetery by its old name, Chipley Cemetery, but these days it is also referred to as Pine Mountain Cemetery. According to Find a Grave, Chipley Cemetery has around 1,300 burials. I suspect there are a number of unmarked graves there as well. It’s not far from Main Street, tucked away off the beaten path.

Below is a picture of the Leslie family plot, with only three marked graves. There may be more but unmarked.

The Leslie plot interested me more for the iron fence around it than the actual people buried there, I admit. While not in the best condition, it excited me because it was made by the Cincinnati-based Stewart Iron Works. I’ve featured this company in this blog before. They were known throughout the country for their fine work.

Not far from the Leslie plot is the Dunlap family plot, which also has a Stewart Iron Works fence around it.

The oldest son of Joseph T. Dunlap and Rebecca Hamilton Dunlap, Walter Fain Dunlap was a farmer in Meriwether County. He married Rosamond Dillard in 1904.

Sadly, many of their children would die in infancy. Four Dunlap children died between 1906 and 1913. Two of their children, Mary and Fay, would live past infancy. Fay married and move to Ohio, dying in 1997. I could not trace Mary past her teen years.

I’m always intrigued by what people did for a living. Walter pursued farming like his father until the 1930s. Since the Great Depression made farming a very difficult existence, many turned to other careers and Walter was one of them. He is listed in both the 1930 and 1940 U.S. Census records as a traveling art salesman.

This puzzled me at first until I saw that in 1940 he was a calendar salesman for the Gerlach Barklow Company of Joliet, Ill. When the company started in 1907, there was no way to mass produce color prints so each had to hand-tinted by employees. Much of the artwork on the calendars was produced by local artists, many of whom were women. Gerlach Barklow calendars were often purchased by businesses to be given to their important customers as gifts. The company closed in 1971.

 

Nearby was a marker for Nancy Eliza Houston, who died at the age of 19. I don’t know what the cause was. She was the daughter of James O’Neal Houston and Nancy Jane Kimbrough  Houston.

Despite the fact she lived a short life, she made an impact on those around her. Her Find a Grave online memorial has a note from a woman named Judy Jackson who wrote: “I went to school with Nan and knew her since we were small. She was as beautiful on the inside as she was on the outside.”

John Willis Crawford saw a great deal in his life as a blacksmith in Chipley. Born in 1847, he married Mary Elizabeth “Betty” Barnhart (only 15 at the time) in 1870 and together they had at least seven children. He served in the Confederate Army in Georgia’s Third Cavalry Regiment.

John died in 1930 at the age of 83 and is buried beside some of his children. His marker was made by hand. There is no marker at Chipley for his wife, Betty, who died in 1933. She may be in an unmarked grave or buried elsewhere.

The grave of dentist Dr. Thomas Penhallegon intrigued me because it was by itself next to the back fence, not close to the other graves. He didn’t spend much time in Chipley at all but his life had more twists and turns than a soap opera.

Born in Calumet, Mich., Thomas he got his dental degree from the Chicago College of Dental Surgery in 1902. He married Rose Wood in 1905 in Traverse City, Mich.

Rose and Thomas moved to Oregon and in 1912, he took his board exams to become a dentist in Salem, Ore. In 1914, he and a fellow dentist sued their employer, Edgar Parker, as the result of alleged injuries sustained from the use of “hydrocane,” a dental anesthetic. Both claimed they had to quit working because of their injuries. This may be why city directories note that Thomas turned to real estate as vice president of the Warrenton-Astoria Townsite Co. in Portland, Ore.

By World War I, Thomas had left Oregon for Cartersville, Ga. working as a superintendent at the Republic Iron & Steel Co. In 1919, Rose and Thomas officially divorced and in 1920, he married a Frenchwoman named Marie “May” Helm. They lived in Atlanta and he opened One Price Dental.

Rose is listed in the 1920 Census in Yakima, Wash. as a widow but living with a “parnter” named David Dodge. I have never seen this term used in census records so early. Business directories list her as “secretary treasurer” of the Warrenton-Astoria Townsite Co.

A 1914 newspaper ad (shown above) lists David Dodge as manager of their Portland office, and the 1914 business diretory lists him as married to a woman named Leona. I can only guess that Rose left Thomas for David Dodge, who left his wife for Rose. By 1930, Rose had married David Dodge and they were living in Los Angeles, Calif. She died in 1958.

In the late 1920s, Thomas and May moved to Birmingham, Ala. to help one of Thomas’ relatives who owned a foundry and cement coloring company. They remained there until the mid 1930s when they returned to Atlanta. They moved to Chipley at some point after 1935 and Thomas worked as a dentist there until his death in 1940. If May is buried with him, she has no marker.

I photographed the markers for two brothers, Willis and James Garner. I noticed that they had died within days of each other in 1895.

The parents of Robin and James were John Sledge Gardner and Althea Marion Collins Garner. They lived in a little town called Rough Edge in nearby Troup County. The couple had several children, with Robin and James being the second and third.

Althea died on January 2, 1896, only a 13 days after James. She is buried at Bass Family Cemetery in Troup County. I’m not sure why James and Robin are not buried with her. It looks like they may have all succumbed to the same illness.

It appears that John and the younger children moved to Alabama soon after but I don’t know what happened to them. A family tree on Ancestry says John died in 1905 but he is not on Find a Grave.

I did discover that eldest Garner son, John, ended up moving to Ocilla, Ga. and marrying a woman named Hazel. They named two of their sons after John’s brothers, Willis and Robin. They must have meant a great deal to John.

If I’d had more time, I would have explored more of Chipley Cemetery but I only saw about 65 percent of it. But I know I’ll be back to visit Callaway and Chipley someday. I think it has more stories I need to uncover.

Last week, I shared a little of Monterey’s history and showed some of Whittaker Cemetery’s fascinating “tent” or “comb” graves. They are definitely different!

One of the reasons I chose Whittaker Cemetery to visit has to do with a historic connection. Does the last name Mudd ring a bell? If you’re a Civil War history buff, it probably went off loud and clear. Dr. Samuel Mudd treated the injured leg of Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth after he fled Ford’s Theater.

The extent of Dr. Mudd’s role as a conspirator has never been completely clear. Some think he barely knew him while others feel they were quite close. However, when Booth arrived at Dr. Mudd’s Virginia home with a broken fibula, the doctor didn’t alert authorities right away. His later interviews concerning Booth were also riddled with inconsistencies. His name literally was “mud” in the eyes of many.

Dr. Mudd went on trial for his role in the assassination plot in 1865. He was convicted and escaped the death penalty by only one vote, given a sentence of life in prison. This was commuted in 1869 by President Andrew Johnson, after which Dr. Mudd returned home to Maryland. He resumed his medical practice and slowly brought the family farm back to productivity. He died in 1883 at the age of 49.

One of Dr. Mudd’s cousins was actually a resident of Monterey for the last six years of his life. A native of Baltimore, George Whitefield Mudd was only 16 when President Lincoln was assassinated. I’m sure that his cousin’s actions had an impact on his life and reputation. From the 1880 Census until his death, George moved from West Virginia to Missouri to South Carolina to finally Monterey.

George Mudd was a master mechanic for the railroad and Monterey was a repair station for trains belonging to the Tennessee Central. He and his wife, Ida Zoe Walters Mudd, had three sons. They lived a quiet life. He died in 1928 and his wish was to be buried back in Maryland. His sons, however, chose to make his final resting place in Whitaker Cemetery.

Interestingly enough, I learned that when two men from the funeral home went to Whittaker Cemetery to dig a hole for George Mudd’s grave, there was a casket already in that spot! Apparently, they buried George there anyway and the identify of the person George was placed on top of was never learned.

From reading my blog, you know I post a lot of pictures of grand monuments. They are always exciting to see. But there’s also a special place in my heart for the humbler markers made by hand. The ones not carved by a master stonemason but the markers made by someone very close to the deceased.

These homemade concrete markers for Maude and Issac Riddle, studded with colorful stones, are two of my favorites. My great-great-grandmother Louisa Claar’s marker is also a simple concrete marker with her name scratched on it by hand.

Here’s another homemade grave marker, etched by hand. It looks like there’s a cross and some wheat sheaves or corn stalks across the top.

I share this marker for Tommy Hedgecouch because it’s a modern example of an incredibly old tradition that’s been around for centuries. Graves were often marked in the past with wooden markers or crosses. When you don’t have much money, you use what you have. Unfortunately, such markers are very susceptible to the elements and don’t last very long. Few make it beyond a decade or two.

There were some small, very plain markers in the back of the cemetery. The grave of  Foster Wallace (1924-1938) is hand carved and plain. The cross on it told me someone still cared.

Also among the shadows was this homemade marker for Venie Buckner.

I found a fieldstone with the last name of Bohannon scratched on it, no dates that I could find. There are 34 Bohannons at Whittaker Cemetery. I’m sure they know who it is and still visit often since silk flowers (in great condition) are beside it.

If you look closely, you can see someone has written something on it.

I was intrigued by these three homemade brick monuments, each with a little alcove to place objects. Only a simple stone with the name “Forster’ indicates who they might be.

I’m also intrigued by what people like to leave on graves to show their affection for a loved one. This one below was under a tree and I normally might have walked right on past it. But something nudged me to duck under the branches and have a look.

This child’s grave also has a memento draped upon it.

This child’s grave had a mother owl and her baby beside it.

In front of the grave was this little battered angel.

This colorful red ceramic figurine sits between two white cherubs. They made a sweet trio.

For some reason, I didn’t get a picture of the front of this marker. I believe it was a mother who died fairly young. But it was all the items resting against the back of it that got my attention.

Then there are always angels. I see them at every cemetery I visit. That’s not unusual. But for some reason, the light hit this one just right when I took a picture of it.

I hope you’ve enjoyed wandering through Whittaker Cemetery with me. It’s a peaceful place amid the mountains of the Cumberland Plateau, a perfect haven amid life’s chaos. If you’re ever in the area, stop by and get a look at the tend graves.

 

Some years ago, my husband and I discovered a bed and breakfast in Monterey, Tenn. called the Garden Inn at Bee Rock. The first time we stayed there was after enjoying Jazz Fest in Murfreesboro, something we used to do quite often.

Monterey is located about 94 miles east of Nashville on what’s called the Cumberland Plateau. If you’ve ever driven I-40 to or from Nashville to Knoxville, you’ve driven across the Plateau.

Once called Standing Stone, Monterey was renamed (and incorporated) in 1893 when the newly formed Cumberland Mountain Coal Company turned the town into a center of development for the coal and lumber industries coming to life in the area. A contest held to rename the town resulted in it be changed to Monterey, Spanish for “King of the Mountain”.

Bee Rock is a mountain outcropping next to the Garden Inn that people have been visiting for decades. Some take a picnic to enjoy while scanning the gorgeous mountain views. New brides get their pictures taken against the beautiful natural backdrop.

Chris and I have enjoyed visiting the inn several times since that first visit and talking to owner, Mike Kopec. A Long Island native that still holds onto his accent and gift for story telling, Mike knows how to make his guests feel at home.

In October 2016, we decided to return to the inn after a (too) long hiatus. It was a relaxing weekend and we enjoyed catching up with Mike. More important, my husband sweetly offered to take me to any nearby cemetery I wanted to visit!

Whittaker Cemetery’s first official burial was in 1832, with the death of Vina Jackson Whittaker. Vina was the mother of Thomas Jefferson Whittaker, an important figure in Monterey history that I’ll get to a bit later.

Whittaker Cemetery has about 1,700 memorials on Find a Grave, but I suspect there are hundreds more buried here in unmarked graves. A number of field stones can be found throughout the cemetery.

What you’ll notice after you start wandering about is a handful of a very unusual kind of grave that I’d only seen photos of in the past.

The first time I saw one of these online I was baffled because they look like a small tent resting on top of the ground.

I’ve since learned that this style, often called a tent or comb-style grave, is unique to the Cumberland Plateau and a few other areas. Hundreds of them exist near Albany, Ky. and across Tennessee, mainly in the counties of Fentress, Overton, Putnam, White, Warren , Van Buren and Coffee. They’re found in limited numbers in northern Alabama and Arkansas. Whittaker Cemetery is in Putnam County.

The principal material is sandstone from the Hartselle Formation, which occurs in outcroppings in the area and in Northern Albama. Other materials used to a lesser degree are limestone, tin or metal, concrete, and on rare occasions marble. The word “comb” is an old architectural term that refers to part of a roof.

Variations can be seen depending on the area. In Overton County, the sides are often supported by an iron rod while in White County, they’re supported by a triangular end section of stone inserted underneath.  While some are not inscribed, others may have a separate grave marker or inscription on side of the slab rock. You can see that the two graves in the picture above have a separate grave marker, but they’re not easy to read.

So why would anyone mark a grave like this? There’s a theory that as old wooden coffins deteriorated, the earth on top of the grave sunk. Today, we have cement vaults to prevent that. A stone tent over the sunken grave would have kept animals (who grazed in cemeteries to keep them from getting overgrown) from falling into a sunken grave, and prevented plants from growing in the soil. In the days before power mowers, the easiest way to keep a cemetery mowed was to allow livestock to graze it.

Dr. Richard Finch of Tennessee Tech’s research on tent graves is quite extensive and can explain them far better than I can. You can learn more about that here and see pictures of more of them here. Finch took note of 3,158 tent graves in 404 cemeteries along the western front of the Cumberland Plateau.

The time period for tent graves generally is between the mid-1800s to the mid-1900s, but it can vary a little. Unfortunately, time and nature can be unkind to this style of marker. This tent grave for S.D.L. Young is coming apart at the top.

By contrast, I found out quite a bit about the brief life of Meekel E. France Watson. Born in 1915, she was the daughter of Tennessee natives Wade France and Mary Verbel France. She and her future husband, Herschel, both grew up in the Monterey area. They married on April 7, 1930 in Lake County, Ind. at the age of 15. Herschel was 21.

According to the 1930 Census, Meekel and Herschel were living in Chicago, Ill. where Herschel was working for the railroad.

Sadly, Meekel died on Dec. 9, 1935 for unknown reasons. The 1940 Census indicates Herschel stayed in Chicago, working as a switchman for the railroad. He remarried a woman named Lucille who had a son of her own. Herschel’s marker lays in front of Meekel’s upright one.

Earlier, I mentioned Thomas Jefferson “T.J.” Whittaker. I counted about 50 Whittakers as being buried at Whittaker Cemetery on Find a Grave, but I’m sure there are plenty more.

T.J. was the son of John Whitaker III, whose father John Whitaker Jr. was born around 1761 in Pitt County, N.C., and served in the Revolutionary War. John Jr. and John III came to Putnam County early and were both there for a couple of years. What happened after that is questionable because I’ve seen various versions from different family members. Some of the Whittakers moved to Madison County, Ala.

But T.J. stayed in Monterey. In 1842, he married Nancy Dillard Clark and they had several children. He must have done fairly well there because he amassed quite a bit of land over the years.

In the 1890s, the Cumberland Mountain Coal Company arrived in Putnam County. It was T.J. Whittaker who sold several hundreds of acres of his land to the Company. I don’t know how much money he got from the deal but I’m sure it was a handsome sum at the time.

One of the more unusual tent graves I saw at Whittaker Cemetery is a bit of a puzzle because I’m not sure who it belongs to. The temporary marker in front of it indicates it belongs to Arthur Pippin, who died in 1982. That’s awfully recent for a tent grave.

Arthur does have a military marker memorializing his service in World War I. He and his wife, Viola, had moved out to California by 1940. He died in 1982 in Idaho but his family had his remains brought back to Monterey for burial in Whittaker Cemetery.

Next week, I’ll be back at Whittaker Cemetery to share some of the more traditional gravestones and explore more about this part of the Cumberland Plateau.