Sacred Ground: Blevins Cemetery (Pine Creek)
Last month, the Sacred Ground series visited the Sunnyview Cemetery in Oneida’s Pine Creek community, the resting place of many early members of the Marcum and Blevins families that populated Pine Creek.
The Blevins Cemetery, located nearby, is Pine Creek’s second cemetery. It is much smaller and was established much more recently than the Sunnyview Cemetery, but it is intricately tied to the larger, older cemetery in the woods behind the Baker Watershed lake.
Consisting of a single row of just over one dozen graves, the Blevins Cemetery is a carefully-maintained family graveyard located on the edge of the old Lawrence Blevins farm, at the intersection of Pine Creek Road and Blevins Loop Road.
The Blevins family
An interesting fact: There are five cemeteries in Scott County that are named the Blevins Cemetery, and all are tied to the same family that settled Scott County in its earliest days: the family of Jonathan Blevins, a longhunter who moved to the Big South Fork River in the 1810s.
The other four Blevins cemeteries are all located within the boundaries of the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area. They include the Katie Blevins Cemetery near Bandy Creek, which is the largest of the bunch; the Hattie Blevins Cemetery off Divide Road; the Helen Blevins Cemetery on Parch Corn Creek; and the Jonathan Blevins Cemetery on Station Camp Creek.
It is at the Jonathan Blevins Cemetery that the patriarchal ancestor of the Scott County Blevins family is buried, along with both his wives: Katy Troxel and Sarah Minton.
Blevins’ son, Armpstead Blevins, is almost certainly buried at the Hattie Blevins Cemetery off Divide Road, along with his first wife, Margie Carson Blevins, and several of his children. His second wife, Helen Terry Blevins, is the only grave at the cemetery located on the edge of the old family farm on Parch Corn Creek.
Several other descendants of Jonathan Blevins are buried at the Katie Blevins Cemetery, which was named for his daughter-in-law, Catharine Smith Blevins, wife of Jacob Blevins.
One of Armstead’s children, William Houston “W.H.” Blevins, moved out of the Big South Fork gorge and married Rosa Marcum — the granddaughter of John A. Marcum Sr., who originally settled the Pine Creek area. As profiled in last month’s Forgotten Times feature, W.H. Blevins — nicknamed the “Ram’s Horn Orator” — was one of the most prolific political figures in Scott County in the 20th century. He and his wife were buried at the Sunnyview Cemetery.
The Marcum family has a long and storied history in the Pine Creek area of Scott County, beginning with the move of John A. Marcum Sr. (1812-1905) from Claiborne County to the Oneida area in the early 19th century. And with the marriage of W.H. and Rosa Marcum Blevins, the Blevins family, too, stakes claim to the heritage of the Pine Creek area.
Lawrence Blevins
W.H. and Rosie Blevins had 10 children — which Blevins considered to be a small family. “I guess I butterflied around too long before I got married,” he said. “But my brothers and sisters made up for me.”
The oldest of those children was son Lawrence Blevins, born in 1901. And that’s where the Blevins Cemetery at Pine Creek began.
Lawrence Blevins married Pearl Watson on October 24, 1931. Together, they had 12 children, 10 of whom survived to adulthood. When Pearl died in September 1996, she and her late husband had 27 grandchildren and 41 great-grandchildren. The couple were members of Bethlehem Baptist Church in Oneida.
Like his father before him, Lawrence farmed at Pine Creek, with the family farm spread around what is today Blevins Loop Road. Most of the original farm remains in the family and is owned by descendants — including the parcel where the Blevins Cemetery is located, which is owned by Lawrence and Pearl’s lone surviving son, Roscoe Blevins, who is known to most as “Rock.”
In addition to Roscoe, Lawrence and Pearl had 11 other kids: Lena Mae Jackson was the first-born, in 1932. A son, Lindburg, died of whooping cough in 1933 when he was just one month old. Another son was born and died in 1938. There was also Billy Joe Blevins (1934-2015), Flonnie Blevins Phillips (1939-2010), Mary Rose Blevins (1940-2017), Nancy Blevins Ooten, Ruth Blevins Burress (1943-2002), Barbara Blevins King (1946-2007), J.D. Blevins (1952-1992), and Bonnie Jean Blevins Phillips (1955-2023).
The baby of the family, Bonnie Jean, died just last month. She was the mother-in-law of Oneida pharmacist Mark Byrd.
Surviving children of Lawrence and Pearl Blevins, in addition to Roscoe, include daughters Lena Mae Jackson and Nancy Ooten. Lena Mae is the grandmother of former Oneida High School basketball coach Amanda Jackson.
The family cemetery
The first person buried at the Blevins Cemetery was Carol Berry Blevins, who died on March 5, 1976 at the young age of 37. She was the first wife of Roscoe Blevins.
Later that same year, William John Bell died and was buried at the cemetery, 10 days before Christmas. He was the husband of Bonnie Jean Blevins, and was only 45 when he died.
Lawrence Blevins was buried at the cemetery when he died in 1983, at the age of 81. His wife would be buried there when she died 13 years later, in September 1996.
In between, J.D. Blevins — Lawrence and Pearl’s youngest son — was buried at the cemetery in March 1992 when he died suddenly at the age of 39.
The cemetery grows
Of the 14 burials at Blevins Cemetery, more than half have been in the past 15 years. Eleven years after Pearl Blevins’ death in 1996, Barbara Blevins King — one of Lawrence and Pearl’s daughters — died at age 61 and was buried at the cemetery. Her husband, James Curtis King, would also be buried there in January 2012.
Flonnie Blevins Phillips, another of Lawrence and Pearl’s daughters, was buried at the cemetery in July 2010 when she died at age 70.
James Michael Blevins was buried at the cemetery in January 2016 when he died at age 33.
Later that same year, Rock Blevins’ second wife, Pansy, died and was buried at the cemetery. A month after that, Samantha Bell Mills died at age 39 and was buried at the cemetery. She was a granddaughter of Lawrence and Pearl Blevins; the daughter of Bonnie Blevins Phillips.
Mary Rose Blevins, the 77-year-old daughter of Lawrence and Pearl Blevins, died in September 2017 and was buried at the cemetery.
Joshua Clayton Lawson died in June 2019 at the age of 23 and was buried at the cemetery. He was the brother of James Michael Blevins. Joshua and James were the grandsons of Rock and Pansy Blevins.
Cemetery census
BLEVINS CEMETERY (PINE CREEK)
GPS Coordinates: 36.51357, -84.54658
First Burial: 1976
Last Burial: 2025
Burials since Robert Bailey’s 1994 cemetery census? Yes
William J. Bell, 1931-1976
Bonnie Blevins Phillips, 1955-2023
Carol Berry Blevins, 1938-1976
J.D. Blevins, 1952-1992
James M. Blevins, 1982-2016
James Roscoe Blevins Sr., 1936-2025
Lawrence Blevins, 1901-1983
Mary R. Blevins, 1940-2017
Pansy Hall Blevins, 1938-2016
Pearl Watson Blevins, 1913-1996
Barbara Blevins King, 1946-2007
James C. King, 1931-2012
Joshua C. Lawson, 1995-2019
Samantha Bell Mills, 1977-2016
Flonnie Blevins Phillips, 1939-2010
This story is part of the Scott County Cemetery Project.