Sacred Ground: Archie Lewallen Cemetery
COAL HILL | Immediately adjacent to Coal Hill Cemetery on its west side is the Archie Lewallen Cemetery.
To look at them, these two cemeteries appear as one. There’s nothing more than a few sections of chain link fencing to delineate the two. For legal purposes, however, these are two separate cemeteries. At one point, there was a wooden sign reading “Archie Lewallen Cemetery,” but it has fallen and is hidden in the bushes by the road.
The Lewallen Cemetery is itself two separate cemeteries. The Freels Cemetery adjoins the Lewallen Cemetery, and is partitioned off with chain link fencing. For the purposes of this story, these two cemeteries will be treated as one.
Coal Hill Cemetery is much larger than the adjoining cemetery. The Lewallen Cemetery consists of less than a quarter of an acre of land, and fewer than two dozen graves. The larger of the two is also the older of the two — dating back to around 1880. The Lewallen Cemetery wasn’t established until 1920, and it was years after that before burials there began to multiple.
The Lewallen family
The Lewallen family has a deep history in the Glenmary and Coal Hill areas, dating back to Virginians Anderson Grant Lewallen and Lucy Rice Lewallen, who moved to the Coal Hill area sometime after their marriage in 1784. They’re buried at the Lewallen Cemetery off Coal Hill Road near Wolf Creek, which is one of several Lewallen family cemeteries scattered throughout this southern Scott County community. One of their children, John Lewallen, was Scott County’s first sheriff.
The Archie Lewallen Cemetery is named for Archie Leroy Lewallen Sr. (1893-1982), a World War I veteran who was Sheriff John Lewallen’s great-grandson.
Many members of the Lewallen family are buried at a separate Lewallen Cemetery that is located a couple of miles to the east, deeper into the Coal Hill community. That includes Archie Lewallen’s parents, John Harrison Lewallen and Lydia Landrum.
Archie Lewallen married Ella Jane Miller in 1919. She was the daughter of Oliver Miller and Emily Pemberton. They had one child together, daughter Maxine Marie, before Ella Jane died in 1920 at the age of 29. Ella Jane was suffering from the flu when Maxine was born, and died just weeks later. She was buried at Helenwood Cut.
Archie Lewallen remarried two years later to Mary Irene Robbins, the daughter of William Robbins and Elizabeth Hughett. They had six more children together.
Irene Lewallen died in 1983 and is buried at the Archie Lewallen Cemetery beside her husband. She shares a headstone with one of their daughters, Betty Lewallen Glander, who died in 1985.
Archie and June had two children who died in infancy: son Archie Jr. in 1928, and daughter Irene in 1929. Both are buried at another of the Lewallen cemeteries at Coal Hill, as are several of Archie and June’s adult children. An exception was son Eugene, who died in a car accident in 1945 at the age of 24, after serving in World War II. He is buried at Archie Lewallen Cemetery along with his parents and his sister Betty.
The youngest of Archie’s children, Mildred Faye, married Floyd Sexton and was a longtime employee of Clinch Powell. She died in 2016 and is buried at Byrges Creek. Her stepson was Scott County Assessor of Property Tony Sexton.
The first Lewallen to be buried at the Archie Lewallen Cemetery, meanwhile, was Roy E. Lewallen, in April 1958. He was the son of Joseph Lewallen and Effie Galloway. His wife, Eva Walker, was also buried at the cemetery in 1996. She was the daughter of Joe and Almira Walker.
The only other Lewallens to be buried at the cemetery were Archie’s sisters, Nellie Mae Lewallen and Mary Etta Lewallen.
The Freels family
Henderson Scott Freels was 56 years old when he was buried in the family plot at Archie Lewallen Cemetery in October 1950. He was the son of John Lewis Freels and Emilie England from nearby Mill Creek. The Freels family was one of Morgan County’s earliest families.
Henderson Freels married Mattie Hawn, the daughter of Timothy Hawn and Mary Walker, in 1918. The Hawn family lived at nearby Wolf Creek. Timothy Hawn married the daughter of Civil War veteran Daniel Walker and his wife, Almira Goad.
Mattie died in 1980 and was also buried in the family plot at Archie Lewallen Cemetery. Also buried there was Henderson and Mattie’s son, Kenneth Quentin, and his wife, Lucy Neely; and son Freeman Glenn and his wife, Joyce Ann Clevinger.
Also buried at the cemetery is Joanna Freels, who was the wife of Roger Freels, and Vietnam War veteran Thomas Freels. He was the son of Kenneth and Lucy Freels, and a grandson of Henderson and Mattie Freels. Joanna Freels was Thomas Freels’ sister-in-law; Thomas and Roger were brothers.
The Barger family
Perhaps the most recognizable person buried at Archie Lewallen Cemetery is educator Maggie Storey Barger, who was buried there in 2013.
Much of what we know about the historic Glenmary and Coal Hill communities is due to the painstakingly documented work of Maggie Barger, who was a lifelong resident of Glenmary and a principal of the Glenmary School for several years before it was closed.
Born in February 1919, Maggie Storey was the daughter of Dudley Sherman Storey and Susan Stanford. Her parents are both buried at Archie Lewallen Cemetery, as well. Her father, Dudley Storey, was descended from the Storey family that populated Pickett County.
Maggie Storey married Arthur Barger, the son of Henry Barger and Martha McCormick, and a longtime employee of the Tibbals Flooring Co. in Oneida.
Also buried at Archie Lewallen Cemetery are Maggie’s sisters, Myntha Mae Storey and Pearl Storey McCarty. Pearl’s husband, Harry, is buried there as well.
The Fulwiler family
The Fulwiler family at Glenmary was tied into the Lewallen family. Howell James “Bill” Fulwiler was originally from Kingston, the son of James Fulwiler and Nora Spears, but married Virginia Kathleen Lewallen, who was a sister to Archie Lewallen.
Bill Fulwiler died in 2001 and was buried at the cemetery bearing his brother-in-law’s name. His wife died in 2012 and was also buried there. Their son, Greg Fulwiler, died later that same year and was buried at the cemetery, as well.
The Robbins family
Artie Walker was a sister to Eva Walker, who married Roy Edgar Lewallen; a daughter to Joseph Walker and Elmira Robbins.
Artie married Linsay Robbins, the son of William Robbins and Elizabeth Hughett. Both Artie and Linsay are buried at Archie Lewallen Cemetery, as are two of their sons, Carl Robbins and Houk Robbins. Artie and Linsay had a daughter, Alene Robbins, who married Shelton Godsey. Both Alene and Shelton are buried at the cemetery, as well.
Linsay Robbins also has a brother, William Henderson Robbins, buried at the cemetery.
The Huckeby family
Yet another of Archie Lewallen’s siblings buried at the family cemetery is Ernie Lewallen Huckeby. Born in 1906, she married Virdie Lonnie Huckeby in 1926. He was the son of James M. Huckeby and Minerva Smith who lived in Glenmary.
Virdie Huckeby died in 1985, and Ernie died three years later. Both were buried at Archie Lewallen Cemetery. Their son, John Victor Huckeby, was later buried at the cemetery in 1994, and his wife, Mildred Seabolt, was buried there in 2008.
The Sims family
Everette Sims was one of the first people buried at Archie Lewallen Cemetery when he died in July 1926 at the age of 20. He was the son of Alvin Huff Sims and Amanda Jones.
The same year Everette died, he had a sister, Josephine, who died and was buried at Archie Lewallen Cemetery. Josephine had married Elbert Clark Todd, the son of William Todd and Sarah Russell, who years later would be buried at Carson Memorial Park in Oneida.
For years before Josephine Todd’s death, she and Elbert had a baby girl who died and became the first person buried at Archie Lewallen Cemetery.
It is not clear what claimed the lives of two siblings at such young ages in the same year. Both Alvin and Amanda Jones Sims would later be buried at Archie Lewallen Cemetery, as well.
Cemetery Census
ARCHIE LEWALLEN CEMETERY
GPS Coordinates: 36.30778, -84.61167
First Burial: 1923
Last Burial: 2018
Arthur Barger, 1912-1985
Maggie Storey Barger, 1919-2013
Freeman G. Freels, 1922-2007
Henderson S. Freels, 1894-1950
Joanna Freels, 1934-1983
Joyce Clevinger Freels, 1927-2018
Kenneth Q. Freels, 1918-2004
Lucy Freels, 1922-2014
Mattie Freels, 1900-1980
Thomas J. Freels, 1939-1995
Howell J. Fulwiler, 1921-2001
James Fulwiler, 1960-2012
Virginia Lewallen Fulwiler, 1922-2012
Betty Glander, 1932-1985
Alene Robbins Godsey, 1922-2016
Shelton Godsey, 1904-1985
Ernie R. Huckeby, 1906-1988
John V. Huckeby, 1929-1994
Mildred Seabolt Huckeby, 1932-2008
Virdie Huckeby, 1893-1982
Archie Lewallen, 1893-1982
Eugene D. Lewallen, 1921-1945
Eva Walker Lewallen, 1894-1996
Irene Robbins Lewallen, 1898-1983
Mary Etta Lewallen, 1908-2004
Nellie M. Lewallen, 1899-1973
Roy E. Lewallen, 1892-1958
Harry E. McCarty, 1911-1995
Pearl Storey McCarty, 1911-1996
Artie W. Robbins, 1886-1961
Carl Robbins, 1917-1981
Houk Robbins, 1920-1976
Linsay Robbins, 1893-1973
William H. Robbins, 1904-1984
Alvin H. Sims, 1874-1949
Amanda Jones Sims, 1868-1938
Everett C. Sims, 1905-1926
Dudley S. Storey, 1886-1978
Mynthia M. Storey, 1908-1996
Susie Stanford Storey, 1886-1966
Infant Todd, N/A-2022
Josephine Sims Todd, 1902-1926
Wilbur Watts, 1930-2025
This story is part of the Scott County Cemetery Project.