Sacred Ground: Blevins Cemetery at Station Camp

The Sacred Ground series has profiled several cemeteries in Scott County that are linked to the Blevins family.

There was, of course, the Blevins Cemetery at Pine Creek. And, nearby, the Sunnyview Cemetery that preceded it. There was also the Katie Blevins Cemetery near Bandy Creek and the Hattie Blevins Cemetery off Divide Road in far western Scott County.

This week we go back to where it all began: Station Camp Creek, and Jonathan Blevins: the forefather of the Blevins family in Scott County.

Jonathan Blevins was a long hunter who moved to the Big South Fork River sometime around the time of the War of 1812. All the Blevins in Scott County today are descended from him.

The Blevins family is closely associated with the Big South Fork region because that’s where the family lived for the first two generations in what is now Scott County. It was William Houston “W.H.” Blevins — Jonathan’s grandson — who moved out of the Big South Fork gorge and married Rosa Marcum at Pine Creek. From there, the Blevins family is intricately intertwined with the Pine Creek community, and Lawrence Blevins — the oldest of W.H. and Rosa Blevins’ 10 children — is where the Blevins Cemetery at Pine Creek began.

Before W.H. Blevins left the Big South Fork River, his dad — Armstead Blevins, who lived most of his life at Parch Corn Creek about a mile down-river from Station Camp — and several of his dad’s siblings were buried at Hattie Blevins Cemetery. Some of Armstead Blevins’ other siblings, starting with Jacob Blevins, were buried at Katie Blevins Cemetery.

Armstead and Jacob were the sons of Jonathan Blevins. And so we travel back 160 years — to March 1863. That’s when old Jonathan Blevins died and was buried in a field along Station Camp Creek, about two miles west of the river he called home for most of his life.

The story of Jonathan Blevins

There have been entire books written about Jonathan Blevins, his brothers, and his father — long hunters, all of them, and they had quite a reputation. Mainly, they were good at their trade. But, for whatever reason, Jonathan Blevins decided to give up the long hunting game and settle down to farm. That’s what brought him to the Big South Fork River sometime around or just after 1810.

The Blevins roots in the United States appear to go back to about 1734, when William “Old Bill” Blevins sailed from Lancashire, England and landed in Virginia Colony. It was with Old Bill that the long hunting tradition began. He and his sons were known to travel throughout Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky in search of game. A report from 1751 noted that Blevins and his sons “would bring in to the local trading post more pelts than there was cash to pay for,” and added that “there is no name on the hunter roll more familiar than the name of Blevins.”

One of Bill Blevins’ sons was Daniel Blevins, the father of Jonathan Blevins Sr.

Jonathan Blevins Sr. was born in 1763 and made the move from Virginia through the Cumberland Gap to Big South Fork Country, settling in the area of Rock Creek in Wayne County, Ky.

From there, his son, Jonathan Blevins Jr., was part of a group of settlers that moved south to the Station Camp area.

Blevins first married Katy Troxell in 1803 and they had at least four children together. Katy was the daughter of “Big Jake” Troxell. Legend had it that her mother was a Cherokee Indian commonly referred to as Princess Cornblossom, daughter of Chief Chuqaulatague Doublehead. The story of Cornblossom, most historians and genealogists now agree, is a work of fiction. It originated in a 1958 book entitled “Legions of the Lost Mine,” which has been discredited. Simply put: It does not appear that the woman called Cornblossom ever existed. Therefore, it’s not clear who Katy Blevins’ mother was.

In any event, Katy Blevins died in 1814. The location of her burial isn’t clear. It is often assumed that she is buried at the same location on Station Camp Creek where her husband would be buried many years later. If this could be proven, it would mark the earliest known burial within what is now the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area. Alas, there is no way to prove it; in fact, it seems rather doubtful.

Following Katy’s death, Jonathan Blevins remarried to Sarah Minton. Their marriage was on Dec. 21, 1814. They had several children together, as well.

A few notes:

1.) The book “Jonathan Blevins Sr. of Virginia and His Descendants,” written by Laccie W. and Ray E. Blevins and now out of print, states that Jonathan Blevins Jr. lived in Wayne County, Ky. until 1850 and then moved to Scott County, Tenn.

If corroborated, that would place his arrival in Scott County many years later than has traditionally been assumed. It should be pointed out, however, that Wayne County, Ky. and Scott County, Tenn. have often been confused in genealogy dating back to the years prior to Scott County’s establishment in 1849, due to uncertainties over the placement of the state line between Tennessee and Kentucky. It is commonly accepted that Jonathan Blevins lived at Parch Corn Creek on the Big South Fork River by 1815.

2.) The marriage certificate for Jonathan Blevins’ wedding to his second wife, Sarah Minton, was filed in Wayne County, Ky. If the marriage truly took place in Wayne County, this would certainly mean that Katy Troxell Blevins is not buried on Station Camp Creek, since the family would not have been living in Tennessee at that point. Again, though, the frequent confusion between which parts of the Big South Fork region were in Tennessee and which were in Kentucky must be taken into consideration.

3.) Each of Jonathan Blevins’ children who still lived in Scott County in 1860 told census enumerators at that time that they were born in Kentucky — including Armstead, born in 1820, and Isaac, born in 1822. Given the confusion over the placement of state boundaries, however, it’s impossible to say for certain that this is proof that the Blevins family had not arrived on the Big South Fork River by the early 1820s.

4.) There are some family histories that place the death of Jonathan Blevins Sr. — the father of Jonathan Blevins Jr. — on Station Camp Creek in 1830. If that is true, he and his wife may also be buried in unmarked graves at the cemetery there, though that is not commonly believed to be the case.

Meanwhile, Sarah Minton Blevins died in 1838 and is commonly reported to have been buried at the Blevins Cemetery on Station Camp Creek. However, her grave — if she was buried there — was not marked.

Jonathan Blevins moved from his home on Parch Corn Creek to Station Camp Creek, and it was there that he died in March 1863 after being stung by bees. He was 83 years old at the time. This was about a month before Confederate guerrillas raided the Station Camp settlement in April 1863.

In 1976, more than 100 years after Blevins’ death, descendants erected a permanent monument at the location of his grave, which is roughly halfway between the Big South Fork River and Charit Creek Lodge, in an old field on the banks of Station Camp Creek that has since been reclaimed by nature.

The King family

While Jonathan Blevins and his family settled one end of Station Camp Creek, William Riley Hatfield settled the other end, which we know today as Charit Creek Lodge. It is said that Hatfield was descended from the same Hatfield family that was involved in the famous, long-running Hatfield and McCoy feud in West Virginia, and that he moved to Tennessee to escape the violence. Unfortunately, he couldn’t run from trouble; he was killed along the river in 1892, following an argument with another man who shot him with a .45-70 rifle.

Also coming to the Big South Fork area about the same time was Jonathan Burke, who built a cabin along the river about halfway between Parch Corn Creek and No Business Creek, a couple of miles downstream from Station Camp. It was at this home that the famous “Battle of No Business” or “Duck Shoals Skirmish” was fought in 1863, about a month after Jonathan Blevins’ death.

William Hatfield married Burke’s daughter, Elizabeth. One of their children was Nancy Ellen Burke, who would later marry Kirby Sherman King. Kirby was the son of Millie Angel King, of Angel Valley in Winfield. The King family was prominent at Capuchin Creek east of Winfield, and Kirby King’s brother moved to what is now McCreary County and was the patriarch of the large King family there.

Kirby and Nancy Ellen King — both of whom are buried at Coffey Cemetery in Oneida — were married in 1866 and had 12 children. One of them was Ike King, who lived his entire life at Station Camp and was a prominent business owner and school teacher.

Three of Kirby and Nancy’s other children are buried at the Blevins Cemetery on Station Camp Creek, where Jonathan Blevins was buried in March 1863.

The first, an infant boy named Gordon King, was buried there on Oct. 27, 1879. The second, a baby girl named May King, was buried there on Oct. 10, 1891.

In 1900, the last burial occurred at Blevins Cemetery. Twenty-five-year-old Julie Ann King, the sister of Gordon and May King, was crossing Station Camp Creek on a footbridge when she suffered an epileptic seizure and tumbled into the water, drowning.

(Incidentally, the youngest son of Sherby and Nancy Ellen King, William Ozias, or “Zi”, moved to Pine Creek and is buried at Sunnyview Cemetery along with several of Jonathan Blevins’ descendants.)

Today there are four known burial grounds along Station Camp Creek, and the Blevins Cemetery is the third of the four if traveling from east to west. The first is the burial site of Elijah Smith, approximately a mile from the river. The second is the Owens Cemetery, where a father and several of his children are buried about half a mile east of the Blevins Cemetery. The last of the four is the Burke-Hatfield Cemetery at Charit Creek, where William Riley Hatfield and Jonathan Burke are buried.

Unknowns

Are either or both the wives of Jonathan Blevins — Katy Troxell Blevins and Sarah Minton Blevins — buried at the Blevins Cemetery on Station Camp Creek? Are his father and mother? 

The answer to both questions is likely no. However, it’s worth noting that there are several unidentifiable graves at the cemetery that are marked by uninscribed field stones. There are at least four of these graves, though three appear to have been children, judging from their size. There appears to be two other graves that are surrounded by undergrowth, outside the area that is periodically cleared by the National Park Service, though the above-ground evidence isn’t conclusive.

Sadly, many of the earliest deaths in Scott County — especially prior to 1830 — resulted in burials that were not recorded.

Cemetery Census

BLEVINS CEMETERY (STATION CAMP)
GPS Coordinates: 36.540855, -84.701828
First Burial: 1863*
Last Burial: 1900

Jonathan Blevins Jr.                     1779-1863

Gordon King                                   1879-1879

Julie Ann King                                1875-1900

May G. King                                    1891-1891

*There are several unidentifiable graves at Blevins Cemetery — at least four, and perhaps as many as six. Therefore it is impossible to conclusively date the cemetery.

This story is part of the Scott County Cemetery Project.