Sacred Ground: Chambers Cemetery (Buffalo)
The roots of Scott County’s Chambers family run deep — all the way back to shortly after the Revolutionary War, when Sgt. William Chambers migrated with his family from Virginia to present-day Scott County, settling along Buffalo Creek.
William Chambers is one of 14 known Revolutionary War veterans who settled in Scott County after the war. Last week, “Sacred Ground” featured the Goad Cemetery at Brimstone, where one of those war veterans — Joseph Griffith — is buried.
William Chambers is believed to be buried at the Chambers Cemetery on Smith Creek Road in the Buffalo community. That cannot be verified; there is no headstone in the cemetery that marks his grave. But oral family histories say that he is buried there, along with his wife.
There are more than four dozen graves at the cemetery, all of them members of the Chambers clan or others who were tied to the family. There are several Chambers cemeteries scattered throughout Scott County — including four at Buffalo Creek alone. But this one is the largest of the bunch, and also the oldest. It dates back to at least 1838, and perhaps earlier than that.
William Chambers
The Chambers family in Scott County can trace its lineage back to Scotland. William Chambers was a second-generation American; his father, David Chambers, migrated from Scotland to Ireland and then to the American colonies as a young man, landing in Philadelphia in 1743. From there, David Chambers moved to Culpepper County, Va., which is where William Chambers and several of his other children were born.
It appears to be their Scottish roots that brought the Chambers family through the Cumberland Gap to the frontierland that would become Kentucky and Tennessee. David Chambers moved his family to a Scotch settlement in the mountains of North Carolina, after which they moved to Boonesboro, Ky., which is where the elder Chambers died in 1808.
Several of David Chambers sons served in the Revolutionary War. John Chambers was a private in the Continental Army, and Alexander Chambers served in the army as well. William Chambers was a sergeant in the Continental Army, serving in the 4th Virginia Regiment. He was wounded in action but survived the war.
After the war, William Chambers moved to what is now Scott County, settling on Buffalo Creek. Most family histories suggest that Chambers was captured by Indians during the war and moved to Indian territory in Arkansas, where he was called Walkingstick Da-Sti-Sti and married a chieftan’s daughter named Tar-Chee-See. There have been genealogists who have cast doubt on that oral history, but it’s an interesting footnote nonetheless.
William Chambers is believed to have died about 1840. He is one of 12 Revolutionary War veterans whose name is inscribed on a plaque that was placed outside the Scott County Courthouse in Huntsville in 1976.
Both Chambers and his alleged wife, Tar-Chee-See, are said to be buried at the Chambers Cemetery on Buffalo Creek. However, there are no stones to mark their graves.
Thomas Chambers
Most of William Chambers’ children wound up west of the Mississippi River, settling in Missouri and Iowa. However, one followed him to Scott County.
Thomas Chambers, born in Virginia in 1777, made the move to the part of the Cumberland Plateau that would become known as Scott County as an adult. Like his father, he settled on Buffalo Creek and established a farm there.
This area of Buffalo Creek — between Stanley Creek and Sugar Grove, and including Smith Creek — was among the most prominent parts of Scott County in the early 19th century. In fact, there was a bowl factory at Smith Creek (near where New Zion Baptist Church is currently located) and the community had its own post office. During the Civil War in the 1860s, it was prone to raids by regiments of Confederate soldiers and Rebel guerrillas.
Exactly when Thomas Chambers moved to Scott County isn’t clear. In her book, “County Scott and Its Mountain Folk,” historian Esther Sharp Sanderson wrote that Chambers and another man, Isham Sharp, abandoned their wagons in LaFollette and finished the trip to Buffalo Creek on foot. Isham Sharp was the father of “Uncle Billy” Sharp, a prominent early businessowner in Huntsville who is buried at Huntsville Cemetery. She writes that they made the move to Scott County at about the same time that Joshua Goad — the son of another Revolutionary War veteran, Abraham Goad — arrived and settled on New River. (As a footnote: John Riley Chambers, one of Thomas Chambers’ children, married Margaret Sharp, the daughter of Isham Sharp.)
Sanderson wrote that Thomas Chambers first moved to Tennessee in 1770, settling first at New River, where he had a land grant that included all the property between the mouths of Buffalo Creek and Paint Rock Creek, before moving further up Buffalo Creek to near the mouth of Smith Creek. The date is almost certainly incorrect; there were likely no white men living permanently in Scott County in 1770, and Thomas Chambers was not born until 1777.
Sanderson wrote that Chambers arrived in Scott County with 20 slaves. To be sure, Chambers was one of the few slave-owners in Scott County. As of the 1850 census, Chambers owned six slaves: a 40-year-old man, a 33-year-old woman, and four children between the ages of eight years and seven months. By the 1860 census, Chambers owned 10 slaves: A 50-year-old man, a 40-year-old woman (almost certainly the same two adults listed in 1850), and eight children between the ages of one and 11.
Chambers married Catherine Lakey Lawson, the daughter of another Revolutionary War veteran who moved to Scott County, Randolph Lawson. The Lawson family settled on a five-acre tract on Buffalo Creek for a short period of time before moving on and settling in Albany, Ky.
The cemetery begins
If Tar-Chee-See Chambers, who family history says was the wife of William Chambers, was indeed buried at the Chambers Cemetery near where Smith Creek empties into Buffalo Creek, the cemetery may date back as far as 1818. That’s the year most family histories suggest she died.
However, her burial at the Chambers Cemetery cannot be verified — nor can the burial of her husband, who died around 1840. There are no stones marking either of their graves.
The first burial that can be verified at the Chambers Cemetery is that of Lakey Chambers, the wife of Thomas Chambers.
Thomas and Lakey Chambers had at least eight children before she died on June 15, 1838, at the age of 46. The youngest, David Chambers, was just eight years old at the time of his mother’s death.
From that point, the Chambers Cemetery on the family farm was undisturbed for more than three decades, until Thomas Chambers died in 1871 and was buried alongside his wife. He was about 94 years old at the time of his death. He lived a long and fruitful life, and was one of the most notable early Scott Countians. He was a candidate to be the first judge of Scott County in the 1850 election, but was defeated by Marion Cordell of Helenwood.
By that time, the Chambers family had grown substantially, and burials become much more frequent in the family cemetery at Buffalo.
The cemetery grows
Infant Virginia Bell Chambers was 13 days old when she died on Feb. 14, 1878 and was buried at the cemetery. It’s not clear exactly who her parents were. But the following year, infant Mary Chambers died and was buried at the cemetery on Oct. 21, 1879. She was 14 days old at the time of her death. Her parents were Isham Thomas Chambers — a grandson of Thomas Chambers — and Lucinda Botts.
Another of the unverifiable graves believed to be at Chambers Cemetery is that of David Chambers, the youngest son of Thomas and Lakey Chambers. He died in 1880 and is believed to be buried at the cemetery, but there is no stone marking his grave.
Little Evy Chambers was just one year old when she died on June 25, 1883 and was buried at Chambers Cemetery.
In 1885, Lucinda Botts Chambers — the wife of Isham Thomas Chambers and the mother of baby Mary Chambers — died at the age of 36 and was buried at the cemetery.
The next burial, on July 12, 1887, was one-year-old Jacob Duncan — the son of Champion S. Duncan and Nancy Chambers Duncan, and the first person not named Chambers to be buried at the cemetery. However, he was a part of the family. Nancy Chambers was the daughter of William Alexander Chambers, a granddaughter of Thomas Chambers. She was buried at the cemetery when she died in 1914 at the age of 52.
The next person other than a Chambers to be buried at the cemetery was infant Floyd Laxton, who was three days old when he died on May 20, 1892. He was the son of John Jackson Laxton and Louanner Jane Chambers Laxton. Louanner Chambers was another of Thomas Chambers’ granddaughters, the daughter of Francis Marion Chambers. Another of their sons was Dexter Laxton, who has a road named for him that links Pine Hill with Oneida. John and Louanner Laxton have a six-year-old daughter, Zettie Laxton, who is also buried at Chambers Cemetery.
Francis Marion Chambers and his wife, Julianne Willhite, had three sons who were all Baptist ministers: Andrew Jackson, or A.J., Chambers was a long-time pastor at White Rock Baptist Church in Huntsville. Michael James Chambers, who was buried at Chambers Cemetery when he died in 1971 at the age of 96, was a minister, as well. He was a member of the nearby Mt. Zion Baptist Church at the time of his death. Another brother, Jacob Chambers, was a minister, as well.
Francis and Julianne Chambers also had a newborn daughter, Emily, who was buried at the family cemetery in 1897.
Sheriff Isham Chambers
Another notable burial at the Chambers Cemetery is Sheriff Isham C. “I.C.” Chambers, who died of complications of flu and pneumonia on April 4, 1928, at the age of 44. He was serving as Scott County Sheriff at the time.
I.C. Chambers was the son of Isham Thomas Chambers, and a great-grandson of Thomas Chambers. He married Nancy Laxton, a great-granddaughter of Isham Sharp, the man who had come to Buffalo Creek with his great-grandfather nearly one hundred years earlier.
I.C. Chambers had succeeded Richard D. Ellis as Sheriff following Ellis’s assassination in 1925. R.D. Ellis was killed after being shot in the head by an unknown assassin while standing in the doorway of the Scott County Jail amid a violent moonshine war.
After filling Ellis’s unexpired term, I.C. Chambers was elected to the post of high sheriff in the next election. An obituary in the newspaper at the time of his death stated, “Mr. Chambers has made one of the best sheriffs Scott County has had for many years, serving the County faithfully and trying at all times to preserve order and enforce the laws in every section of the county.”
The cemetery today
Surrounded by chain link fencing in the middle of a hay pasture off Smith Creek Road, and shaded by a pair of mature cedar trees, the Chambers Cemetery is well-maintained and contains nearly 50 graves.
The most recent burial to occur there was Kenneth Dean Chambers, who died on Jan. 14, 2022. He was a great-grandson of Francis Marion Chambers, a great-great-grandson of Thomas Chambers, and third-great-grandson of Revolutionary War veteran William Chambers.
Cemetery inventory
CHAMBERS CEMETERY (SMITH CREEK)
GPS Coordinates: 36.444889069, -84.402839661
First Burial: 1838
Last Burial: 2022
Burials since Robert Bailey’s 1994 cemetery census? Yes
Rosa B. Byrd 1909-1911
Adam Chambers 1894-1894
Carmi Chambers 1901-1902
Lakey Lawson Chambers 1792-1838
Columbus Chambers 1892-1893
Cordelia Honeycutt Chambers 1883-1967
David C. Chambers 1830-1880
Emily S. Chambers 1897-1897
Emma J. Chambers 1935-1935
Ettie Chambers 1888-1889
Evelyn Babb Chambers 1916-2014
Evy Chambers 1882-1883
Fielding Chambers 1861-1945
Francis M. Chambers 1840-1915
Iona H. Chambers 1935-N/A
Isham C. Chambers 1884-1928
Julianne Willhite Chambers 1840-1912
Keith Chambers 1933-2003
Kenneth D. Chambers 1935-2022
Laveda Cross Chambers 1913-1999
Lucinda Botts Chambers 1859-1885
Mary Chambers 1831-1895
Mary Chambers 1879-1879
Mary Strunk Chambers 1831-1895
Mike Chambers 1874-1971
Nancy M. Chambers 1839-1903
Nathan L. Chambers 1914-1997
Oliver E. Chambers 1934-2013
Rosetta Hix Chambers 1877-1903
Tar-Chee-See Chambers* 1752-1818
Thomas Chambers Jr. 1825-1893
Thomas Chambers Sr. 1777-1871
Vestie E. Chambers 1901-1937
Virginia B. Chambers 1878-1878
William Chambers* 1750-1840
William Alex Chambers 1829-1908
Willie Chambers 1911-2007
Mary E. Cross 1882-1905
Nannie Cross 1903-1903
Jennifer R. Crowley 1983-1983
E.S. Duncan 1881-1907
Enic Duncan 1899-1899
Jacob Duncan 1885-1887
Nancy Chambers Duncan 1862-1914
Eva Hicks 1901-1901
Leona Hicks 1917-1917
Floyd Laxton 1892-1892
John Laxton Jr. 1866-1955
Louanner Chambers Laxton 1867-1953
Rosetta Laxton 1890-1896