Were you wondering if I would ever get back to Georgia?

I’ve written about cemetery hopping with my best friend, Christi, before. We usually do it where she now lives in Nebraska or the surrounding states. But in late March 2018, she was in Atlanta visiting her Dad. As usual, I drove from my house in the Northern ‘burbs to spend the night with her at his house in Fayetteville, where we both grew up. It’s about 20 miles south of downtown Atlanta.

I’ve known Christi since 1980, when we met in Vacation Bible School at First Baptist Church of Fayetteville. Our complete lack of volleyball prowess drew us together as we stood on the sidelines, little knowing it would be the foundation of a lifelong friendship.

Christi’s parents had built their home “in the boonies” of Fayette County during the 1970s. It often meant passing Bethany United Methodist Church Cemetery on my way to her house for a sleepover.

Back then, I had zero interest in cemeteries. But in recent years, I’d thought about stopping by. On that day in March last year, we’d already been to another cemetery to visit the grave of Christi’s oldest brother. She was good with one more stop so we did. Having passed it so many times, it felt like a very familiar place even though I’d never actually stopped by before.

Bethany UMC is still an active church. Organized in 1855, the church had been in three different locations before settling at its current site in 1898. The building cost approximately $1,000 and was dedicated on May 21, 1900. The United Methodist Church rotates its ministers every few years so the list of Bethany’s former pastors is quite long. Their current pastor is the Rev. Garrett Wallace, who will make an appearance later in this post.

Hollywood Comes to Bethany Cemetery

According to Find a Grave, there are about 675 recorded burials at Bethany. Some of the markers are broken and look to have been that way for a while. Burials are still taking place now.

If Bethany Cemetery looks familiar to you, that’s because it’s featured on the popular Netflix original series “Stranger Things”, set in 1983. I’ve never watched it. Here’s a photo I found from the series that I found at fantrippers.com.

It’s not unusual for scenes from the Atlanta area to show up in movies and TV shows because Pinewood Studios built a studio only a few miles from Bethany Cemetery a few years ago in Peachtree City. Others have followed since. Bethany Cemetery was also featured in the 2013 movie “Joyful Noise” starring Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah.

There’s another fenced off plot that I saw in the back of the cemetery. I’d never heard of the Shropshire family when I was growing up but they owned a cotton plantation in Fayette County. Joshua Pollard Shropshire (1806-1873) married Minverva Smith in nearby Coweta County in 1833. They had seven children together. Joshua was appointed a judge in Fayette County in 1866.

Joshua did own slaves that worked the plantation, owning seven in 1850. I found a record of the family Bible that lists some of their names and birth dates of children. A man named Greg Burton, a Shropshire descendant, traveled from Canada to the area in the 1970s to visit family and see the plantation. This is a photo he posted of it at this website. I learned this week that the home burned in 1985.

The three eldest Shropshire sons all served in the Confederate Army. Oldest son William Franklin Shropshire was 25 when he enlisted in Georgia’s 10th Infantry Regiment, Company I (known as the Fayetteville Rifle Greys or Fayetteville Grey Guards.) The group left Fayetteville on June 4, 1861, arrived at Richmond, Va. on June 7, 1861 and mustered into service on June 8, 1861.

I found a record that indicated William was in the hospital in Williamsburg, Va. in November 1861. He vanishes from military records after that. William died on March 22, 1863 in Fayetteville. I’m not sure how all that happened but he was buried in Bethany Cemetery after his death.

Third son Joshua Asbury Shropshire, born in August 1839, also served in the Georgia 10th alongside his older brother. I found a record that indicated he had been on “sick furlough” since December 29, 1861 and that it had been “indefinitely postponed”. So I’m not exactly sure what happened to him as well during that time.

What we know for sure is that Joshua died on October 21, 1862 in Williamsburg, Va. Where he is buried is uncertain. There is a military marker for him at Thornrose Cemetery in Staunton Cemetery in Virginia, but the death year on it is incorrectly marked as Oct. 21, 1864. His marker at Bethany has the correct date. A marker for him is recorded in Franklin Garrett’s necrology in the 1930s and it notes that his Bethany marker said “Died in Staunton, Va.” on it. That marker is no longer there.

The Mystery of Joshua’s Grave

Some years ago, from what I found on a website, someone in Fayette County made it their mission to get every veteran in the county (Union and Confederate) a government-issued marker. I think that is who placed the marker that is currently at Bethany Cemetery.

My belief is that Joshua is not actually buried at Bethany but is in Thornrose Cemetery in Virginia. During the Civil War, the Confederate Army did not normally embalm the way the Union Army did. Shipping the body home without issues would have been nearly impossible.

Second in birth order was John Wesley Shropshire, born in 1837. He was 24 when he married Mary Jane Denham in 1862. Together, they had two children, Naomi and Johnnie. It was perhaps his relationship to Mary that prevented him from joining this other two brothers when they enlisted in 1861 and left for Virginia.

Unlike his brothers, John enlisted as a first sergeant in the 2nd Ga. Cavalry Regiment, Company E, also known as the Fayette Dragoons, in July 1963. Most of their time was spent at Camp Lane near Rome, Ga. He only served six months before he and his fellow soldiers mustered out in late December 1963 without seeing much action.

John died a month before daughter Johnnie’s birth on August 1, 1864 for reasons unknown. One notation I saw said he died in the Battle of Atlanta (fought in July 1864), but he had already mustered out months before. He is buried in the Shropshire plot with his parents and brother. It appears that his wife, Mary, never remarried and lived with one of her daughters until her death.

Father Joshua was still living on the plantation with his wife and three daughters when he died in 1873. According to a friend I contacted at the Fayette County Historical Society, the home was sold (along with 600 acres) to William T. Glower in 1876. Minerva died in 1882. They are both buried in the Bethany plot but their markers are so worn you can no longer read them.

A Marriage Torn Apart

On the front side of the cemetery, I photographed a double marker for Acey Edward Banks and his wife, Lexie Mae Griffin Banks. Born in 1892, Acey Edward “Eddie” Banks was the son of Lewis Banks and Elizabeth Phereby Hartley Banks. He married local girl Lexie Mae Griffin in 1923. They lived on a farm in Fayette County with two daughters and a son.

Unfortunately, from what I discovered on Ancestry.com, Lexie’s father, Charlie Griffin, had a tumultuous marriage with her mother, Emma Lee. Things got so bad that Emma moved out of the Griffin home and moved in with Lexie and her family.

According to newspaper accounts and a granddaughter, Charlie showed up in a rage at the Banks farm on May 15, 1931 demanding his wife come out of the house. Emma refused. While the three children hid in a closet, the two men argued and Charlie broke into the home. Exact details vary but the result was Eddie lay dead on the floor while Charlie fled to a nearby swamp.

Charlie Griffin was tried and convicted of murder, sentenced to life in prison. But according to his granddaughter, Charlie was released after only seven years in 1938. He died in 1945 and is buried in an unmarked grave in Ebenezer Cemetery in Fayette County. Wife Emma died in 1964 and is also buried in Ebenezer Cemetery.

Lexie remarried widower Oliver Peek sometime around 1945. She died in 1964 and is buried with Eddie. Oliver died in 1955 and is buried with his first wife, Mary, at Ramah Baptist Church Cemetery in Palmetto, Ga.

As we were preparing to leave, Bethany UMC’s pastor, the Rev. Garrett Wallace, pulled up and got out of his car. I was worried he might not welcome us wandering around the cemetery during sunset, but he welcomed us warmly. He asked if we were visiting because of the TV show and did we have any questions. Apparently, many “Stranger Things” viewers have stopped by recently.

Memories of the Past

Rev. Wallace said his congregants had no problem with movie crews temporarily taking over their church and cemetery, but actually enjoyed the excitement. In addition, the financial compensation the church received enabled them to make much-needed repairs to the buildings.

As I mentioned, “Stranger Things” is set in 1983, only three years after Christi and I became friends. In a way, stopping by Bethany Cemetery that day recaptured some of the magic of our early friendship, when we were two giggly teenage girls watching MTV and munching on Stouffer’s French bread pizza. A time when our weightiest issues were studying for a test or passing a note in class. Not contemplating war or facing a father-in-law’s rifle like some of those resting at Bethany Cemetery.

Strange…but true.

 

Last week I finished up my four-part series on Knoxville’s Old Gray Cemetery. It’s a vast cemetery with plenty of important people to write about. I thoroughly enjoyed visiting there.

But much of the time, you’re going to find me in a place like Pleasant Hill Cemetery in Lenoir City, Tenn. It’s a cemetery out in the country, maybe 30 miles west of downtown Knoxville. No towering obelisks. No massive monuments. But I always manage to find some interesting tales even in nondescript burial grounds like these.

A sign behind what used to be Pleasant Hill Baptist Church (now called the Refuge Church at Pleasant Hill), explains that the cemetery is not supported by the church but by Loudon County. The cemetery website states that Pleasant Hill Cemetery was founded as a community cemetery in 1844 for the Eaton Crossroads community of Loudon County.

In 1997, Pleasant Hill Cemetery Inc., of Loudon County was formed to oversee continuing care of the grounds. It has a volunteer board of directors. Routine mowing and trimming are handled regularly. While this is guaranteed, families are responsible for the upkeep and maintenance of the grave markers.

Green Burials Allowed

Pleasant Hill Cemetery also allows green burials (no embalming or vaults required), something pretty rare these days. It was a welcome surprise.

It was a sunny day just after Christmas 2017 when I stopped to look around Pleasant Hill Cemetery, which is situated on a pretty hillside. According to Find a Grave, it has about 1,300 recorded graves. The cemetery website noted there are about 500 grave sites still available for purchase.

While this cemetery has been around for a while, the earliest graves I saw were from around the turn of the century. There were, I noted, rough-edged fieldstones indicating there were some much older graves there.

Woodmen of the World Tree Markers

I noticed two tree monuments from Woodmen of the World, the fraternal organization turned insurance company. The first was for Robert M. Williams (1869-1912). His marker, though worn, indicates it was a Modern Woodmen of America (MWA) one. When Joseph Cullen Root founded the fraternal organization in 1883, that’s what it was called. Later he would drop the “Modern” and it would be simply “Woodmen of the World”.

Born in 1869, Robert was the oldest son of Samuel Pike Williams and Sarah Hudson Williams. He was married to Delia Melton Williams and they had seven children. According to the 1910 Census, both he and one of his sons, Earl, were working in a car factory. Robert died of heart failure of the age of 42 in 1913. Delia died in 1949 and is buried beside him.

The other tree marker is for Henry Edwin Markwood (1873-1916). As you can see, it’s only three years older than Robert’s but has the more well known Woodmen of the World seal on it. Both markers have a calla lily at the base, which was often meant to symbolize marriage or resurrection.

Henry was the youngest son of Lewis Anderson Markwood and Lucinda Gilbert Markwood. A military record indicates he served in Company E of the Florida Volunteer Infantry as a carpenter from 1898 to 1900 during the Spanish American War. The men were trained for an invasion of Cuba that never took place.

Henry returned to Loudon County and married Clora Williams (who may have been related to Robert Williams) in 1905. The 1910 Census indicates they were living in Monroe, La. with their two daughters while Henry worked as a contractor. At some point after 1913, the Markwoods returned to Loudon County. Clora died on Oct. 27, 1915. I could find no death record for her but Henry died on May 23, 1916 of a cerebral hemorrhage. He was 42, the same age as Robert Williams.

One Husband, Four Wives

I noticed a double gravemarker for two women nearby and realized they were for two of the wives of Clarence Esco (C.E) Lebow. It turns out C.E. had a total of four wives altogether, a first in my book. I spent a good bit of time looking into his life and uncovered what I consider a sad story akin to a soap opera.

Born in August 1890 to Alfred Taylor Lebow and Ellen Hicks Lebow, C.E. grew up in a large family in Blount County, Tenn. Ellen was Alfred’s third wife, the previous two having died. This would be a pattern C.E. also followed.

When C.E. married Lula Viles in Loudon County in March 1909, she already had a daughter named Lena, born in 1907. The couple had a son, Clarence Ray, in August 1910. Lula died on Dec. 15, 1918 of tuberculosis at the age of 33. Lena went to live with her birth uncle’s family before marrying in 1923 and having three sons. She was divorced by 1930 and I could trace her no further. I don’t know what happened to Clarence Ray.

Only two months after Lula’s death on Feb. 7, 1919, Clarence married Bessie Fay Pierce. She died on Christmas Day 1920 at the age of 20, also of tuberculosis. Both wives are buried at Pleasant Hill Cemetery and share a marker, something I don’t often see.

There are some question marks surrounding C.E.’s 1921 marriage to Georgia native Lillian “Lillie” Pauline Carey because I found no record for it. Census records indicate she would have been in her teens. Lillie had a son, Virgil, on Jan. 15, 1921 and I’m not sure who the father was. C.E. and Lillie had a daughter, Margaret, in 1924. Lillie died in April 1931 and is listed as buried at Pleasant Hill but has no marker. I could not find her cause of death.

Children Farmed Out

After Lillie died, Virgil was sent to live at the Williams/Henson Lutheran Boys’ Home in Knoxville. Margaret was sent to the Mayhurst Girls’ School in Louisville, Ky., a school founded by nuns in the 1840s for homeless girls. She would go on to marry and have a family, dying in 2011 in Virginia.

Clarence remarried a fourth and final time to Emma Mays in October 1932. She already had a son, Oscar. By this time, Clarence was working at Knoxville Knit Mills, one of the city’s many underwear/hosiery mills. He would spend eight years employed by them.

On Feb. 22, 1935, Clarence Esco Lebow died shortly after having a heart attack. He was buried at Mount Olive Cemetery in Knoxville. Emma’s name and date of birth are also on the marker but with no death date. Thanks to some help from Gaye Collins Dillon, who belongs to a genealogy Facebook group I am a member of, I learned that Emma remarried to German immigrant Henry Ruehr, who died in 1941. She died in 1984 and is buried in Fort Myers City Cemetery in Florida.

Sadly, on Oct. 9, 1936, Virgil Lebow was delivering papers for the Knoxville News-Sentinel when he was in a car accident that ended his life at the age of 14. He is buried in Bethel Lutheran Cemetery, a small family cemetery connected with the Williams/Henson Lutheran Boys’ Home. His marker has yet to be photographed, although a 1990 inventory lists it. It is located less than a mile from where the only father he ever knew, C.E. Lebow, is buried.

I could find nothing more about Clarence Ray Lebow, although someone on Ancestry noted he had changed the spelling of his last name and possibly spent time in prison. I cannot verify if that is true.

In researching this story, I felt especially sad for the wives and children of C.E. Lebow. It seemed C.E. had a zest for marriage but not for parenthood since the children were all sent to live elsewhere after their mothers died (except for his last step-son, Oscar Mays). It’s possible he didn’t have the money to support them but he had the means to marry. In the end, C.E. is buried alone, something he probably never pictured happening.

Building a Sausage Dynasty

Finally, I found the grave of an East Tennessee celebrity. When I saw the name “Wampler”, I immediately thought of the sausage ads I’ve heard on the radio when my husband tunes in to University of Tennessee Volunteer football games.

Although he credited his father Riley Wampler, Ted Wampler, Sr. is considered the true founder of Wampler’s Farm Sausage. Born in Loudon County in 1929, Ted remembers his father smoking sausage in a little tin shack on the tenant farm where they lived when he was a child. Riley went door to door during the Great Depression selling it to neighbors, stopping briefly during World War II.

“After World War II, little mom and pop stores sprung up everywhere so Dad suggested we re-open the slaughter house. So we did. We each invested $1,100,” Ted Sr. said.

By the 1950s, it became a corporation. In 1981, the family officially changed the name from Wampler’s Wholesale Meats to Wampler’s Farm Sausage Company. The company’s sausage is sold under the Wampler name as well as many private label brands. The Wampler plant, located in Lenoir City, employs about 150 people.

Ted Sr. married his childhood sweetheart, Frances, in 1950 and they had four children. Ted served as a justice of the peace, foreman of the Loudon County grand jury, chairman of the Loudon County Board of Education and the Loudon County Vocational Governing Board, and on the Executive Board of Directors of the Loudon County Rescue Squad. Needless to say, he was actively involved in the community.

Ted died at the age of 86 on April 10, 2016. He is buried beside his parents and his daughter, Mary Lee Wampler Hitch, who was killed in a car accident in 1995 at the age of 40.

I didn’t expect to find as much as I did at Pleasant Hill Cemetery but it was a trip worth taking. Then again, just about every cemetery hop is.

 

Say not Good night, but in some brighter clime
Bid me Good morning.

— From the poem “Life” by Anna Laetitia Barbauld

One thing I neglected to mention earlier is that Old Gray Cemetery has a receiving vault. These storage areas were used to hold human remains before the advent of refrigeration. In the event there was a cold winter and the ground was too hard to dig, cemetery sextons would put coffins in a receiving vault until the weather improved. They’re much more common up North where winters are harsher. Nearby Greenwood Cemetery, however, has one as well.

Tennessee Governor William “Parson” Gannaway Brownlow’s family plot features a large obelisk. Born in Virginia in 1805, William Brownlow’s parents died when he was 11.  Brownlow spent the rest of his childhood on his uncle John Gannaway’s farm. At 18, he learned carpentry from another uncle, George Winniford.

From Carpenter to Fighting Parson

After attending a camp meeting, Brownlow gave up carpentry and studied to become a Methodist minister. He spent the next 10 years traveling Southern Appalachia on horseback competing for converts with ministers from the Baptist, Presbyterian, and other Methodist churches.

Brownlow could be combative with his fellow circuit preachers if they didn’t see eye to eye. In 1831, Brownlow was sued for libel by a Baptist preacher, and ordered to pay his accuser $5. He was well on his way to earning the moniker “The Fighting Parson.”

Brownlow quit the circuit shortly after marrying Eliza Ann O’Brien in 1836 in Carter County, Tenn. It was at this time he began getting involved in journalism and politics. In 1845, Brownlow ran against Andrew Johnson for the state’s First District seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. He accused Johnson of being illegitimate, suggested Johnson’s relatives were murderers and thieves, and stated that Johnson was an atheist. Johnson won the election by 1,300 votes, out of just over 10,000 votes cast.

Freed Tennessee’s Slaves

Brownlow was appointed by President Millard Fillmore to carry out congressional provisions in 1850 and as a journalist he established The Whig newspaper in Knoxville. He also became an agent for the U.S. Treasury. As the Civil War was ending in early 1865, he (with Tennessee Unionists ) created their own Constitutional Convention and proceeded to free the state’s slaves.

In April 1865, Brownlow was elected the 17th Governor of Tennessee. While in office, he worked on the state’s reconstruction, ruling with a stern hand. The emerging Ku Klux Klan marked him as one of their greatest enemies but Brownlow brushed off their threats.

Running For Senate

Following re-election in 1867, Brownlow chose not to seek a third term but successfully sought the U.S. Senate seat being vacated by David T. Patterson, Andrew Johnson’s son-in-law, in 1869. By the time he was sworn in on March 4, 1869, a persistent nervous disease had weakened him considerably, and the Senate clerk had to read his speeches.

After finishing his term in the Senate in 1875, Brownlow returned to Knoxville and was a partner in establishing the Weekly Whig and Chronicle newspaper. He died at age 71, cause of death being listed as “paralysis of the bowels”. Eliza lived until the age of 96, dying in 1914.

Lady With a Rifle

Their daughter, Susan Brownlow Sawyers (1837-1913), caused a stir thanks to a story in an 1861 issue of Harper’s Weekly. Susan was a young widow, her husband Dr. James Sawyers having died only four months before the death of their daughter, Lillie, in 1858. Susan and Lillie were living with her parents when the incident took place.

According to the story in Harper’s:

When a mob of secessionists attacked her father’s house in his absence and insisted on the Union flag being hauled down from where it floated, this young lady seized a rifle and told them she would defend it with her life. The first who approached would be shot. They threatened her for some time, and tried in every way to frighten her. But she was firm, and after a time the ruffians withdrew, leaving the flag still flying.

Susan remarried to Dr. Daniel Boynton in 1865 and they had several children. She died in 1913. Both she and Dr. Boynton are buried in the Brownlow plot at Old Gray.

Henry Marshall Ashby’s marker got my attention because it looked like he had died in his 30s. The cause of it was not a lingering war wound but the explosive end to a simmering feud.

Born in Virginia in 1836, Ashby attended the College of William and Mary but never graduated. He worked as a trader in Chattanooga but was visiting his uncle in Knoxville when the war began.

Elected Colonel of the Regiment

After enlisting in the Confederate Army, Ashby’s company was assigned to the 4th Tennessee Cavalry Battalion which became part of the 2nd Tennessee Cavalry Regiment. Ashby was elected colonel of the regiment on May 24, 1862. The 2nd Tennessee Cavalry operated in East Tennessee in 1862 and 1863, usually in the brigade of Brigadier General John Pegram. Ashby was wounded during one of three raids into Kentucky made by his regiment during 1862.

Ashby was present at many strategic battles during the war, including Stones River (Tenn.), Brown’s Mill and Chickamauga (Ga.), and Monroe’s Crossroads (N.C.). Ashby actually had his horse shot out from under him at Monroe’s Crossroads. Although sometimes referred to as an acting brigadier general, Ashby ended the war as a colonel. After a visit to New York, he returned to Knoxville.

Bitter Enemies Clash

Union Major Eldad Camp had a score to settle with Ashby. During the war, a number of Camp’s men were held as prisoners of war under Ashby. Camp felt they had been treated abominably in atrocious conditions and held Ashby personally responsible. After the war, Camp pressed charges of war crimes and treason against him. Ashby fled Knoxville but returned when the charges were eventually dropped in June 1868.

On July 9, 1868, Ashby encountered Camp on the street. Ashby hit Camp with his cane while Camp fought back with an umbrella. The following day, Ashby appeared at Camp’s law office near the corner of Walnut and Main Streets. The two went outside where Camp drew his revolver and fired. Henry Ashby was hit in the chest and killed.

While Camp was arrested and charged with murder, all charges were dropped. In examining the various newspaper accounts, the spin put on the event depending on the affiliation of the owner/editor is telling. As you can imagine, Confederate papers tended to support Ashby while those with Union leanings proclaimed Camp an innocent victim acting in self defense.

E.C. Camp went on to a successful business career, building Greystone Mansion. It still stands today as the studios of TV station WATE-TV. He died in his 80s and is buried within sight of Ashby’s grave at Old Gray Cemetery.

There’s one last stone that I wanted to share for a man that’s not even buried at Old Gray. His marker is a cenotaph. But the story of his life is worth reading.

From Knoxville to Korea

Born in Derbyshire, England in 1856, Heron was the son of the Rev. E. S. Heron, a minister of the Congregational Church, and Elizabeth Ayrton Heron. The Herons came to America in 1870 when John was 14. In 1881, he was admitted to the University of Tennessee Medical School and graduated in 1883.

After training at New York University Hospital, he refused the offer of a professorship from the University of Tennessee but instead became a medical missionary (sponsored by the U.S. Presbyterian Church) to Korea. He married Harriet “Hattie” Gibson shortly before he left and she accompanied him.

The Herons arrived in Seoul on June 1885 and John started work in Royal Government Hospital, Chejungwon. In 1887, he became the superintendent of the hospital. He also worked for the royal family while still traveling to rural areas to care for patients. He started Chejungwon Church, which later became Namdaemoon Presbyterian Church. He and Harriet had two daughters in Korea, Sarah and Jessie.

In the summer of 1890, Dr. Heron treated the sick and suffering amid epidemic dysentery and became infected himself. He died on July 26, 1890. Dr. Heron is thought to be the first medical missionary sent to Korea by the U.S. Presbyterian Church and was buried at Yanghwajin Foreign Missionary Center in Seoul.

Hattie married Canadian missionary James Gale in Korea in 1892. She died in 1908 and is buried with her first husband in Seoul.

The Rev. E.S. Heron died of cancer in 1888 in Knoxville and I found a record of Elizabeth’s death in September 1898. I’m not sure who erected this cenotaph to Dr. Heron but it was probably Elizabeth or one of Dr. Heron’s siblings. Neither of his parents have a stone at Old Gray Cemetery but their graves may be unmarked.

I could have written much more, but I’ll leave those nuggets of history for others to write about. Old Gray Cemetery has many of them and I’m happy to have shared just a few.