Sacred Ground: Dewey Phillips Cemetery

Editor’s Note: The first — and, to date, the only — complete index of Scott County’s cemetery records was compiled by Robert L. Bailey in 1994 and published by the Scott County Historical Society, where it remains available for purchase. Bailey’s “Cemeteries of Scott County, Tennessee” is a massive, 481-page book that is the standard for cemetery research. This series is not an effort to recreate Bailey’s research or records. Rather, it is an attempt to expand on them. Bailey’s fantastic work provided an index of burials at each graveyard along with directions on how to reach them. Our series will not be an exhaustive list of every grave, or even every cemetery; for those records, you should consult the Historical Society. Rather, it will be an effort to tell some of the stories behind the people buried in many of our community’s grave yards.

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History has a funny way of forgetting things, sometimes. 

For instance, the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency said for a long time that it had never had a law enforcement officer — game wardens, they’re usually called — killed in the line of duty. But a few years ago, when the Scott County Historical Society was helping research the community’s fallen officers for a memorial that was being planned for what is now called the John John Yancey Memorial Park, it realized that wasn’t true. Tennessee has had a game warden killed in the line of duty (though it predated the formation of the TWRA): Helenwood’s Lindsay Haywood Phillips, who was gunned down in a Highway 27 road house in 1936.

Phillips’ killing wasn’t a secret; it was written about at the time. In fact, a July 6, 1936 story in the Knoxville News Sentinel was entitled, “Guns Riddle Game Warden.”

But, for whatever reason, the circumstances surrounding Phillips’ death were nearly lost to time.

Phillips, who was 56 years old when he was shot to death as he served a warrant, was buried in the Dewey Phillips Family Cemetery west of Helenwood — near where New River and Clear Fork merge to form the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River. The Phillips family lived in the area and, for a long time, the cemetery was actually called the Lindsay Phillips Cemetery. 

More recently, the name has been changed. A sign has been placed denoting the cemetery as the Dewey Phillips Family Cemetery. That’s a bit odd because Dewey Phillips — who was one of Lindsay Phillips’ five children and died in 1979 — isn’t buried at the cemetery at all; he’s buried at Daniel Memorial Cemetery in Helenwood. But when you own a cemetery — or are its caretaker — you can pretty much name it what you want to. 

Lindsay Phillips wasn’t the first person buried at the cemetery. In fact, he was one of the last. Several other members of his family were buried there before him.

The cemetery actually started when Lindsay Phillips’ first wife, Nancy E. Phillips, was buried there in 1908. Nancy, who was born Nancy Thompson and was the daughter of George Washington Thompson and Parizda West of Winfield, died on Feb. 21, 1908. She was only 24. 

It isn’t clear, but it seems likely that Nancy Phillips died as a result of complications from childbirth. Her daughter, Charnettie, was born just nine days earlier.

Tragically, Charnettie also died just a few months later, on July 1, 1908. She was buried alongside her mother.

Not much was recorded about how Lindsay Phillips coped with the tragedy. But he was left with three young children to raise — all boys. Dewey, the oldest, was eight. James Elmer was six. Lee Roy was only three.

Lindsay remarried, to Erna Keeton who lived nearby, and they had another child, a daughter Juanita, who was born in 1913.

Tragedies continued for the Phillips family. In December 1906, just 10 days before Christmas, 22-year-old John Elmer and another young man, 20-year-old Luther West, drowned in New River while duck hunting near Greasey Creek. Phillips was a student at Knoxville Business College at the time and was home on break. He and West drowned when their boat capsized. 

Someone discovered the empty boat downstream, and a search began. West’s body was discovered two days later. However, it wasn’t until two weeks after that, on Dec. 30, 1926, that Elmer’s body was recovered. He was buried in the family cemetery near his mother and infant sister.

Two years later, in 1928, one of Lindsay’s grandchildren died. Infant Nancy Phillips, who was named after her grandmother, was the daughter of Dewey and Grace Newport, who had married in 1923. She was buried in the family cemetery alongside her grandmother, aunt and uncle.

Four years after that, in the summer of 1932, Lee Roy fell ill with typhoid fever. He was sick for three weeks before dying on July 19, 1932. He left behind a wife and three small children. He, too, was buried in the family cemetery.

The only other grave at Dewey Phillips Family Cemetery is that of Elizabeth “Betty” Phillips, who was born in 1873 and died in 1945. 

The death of Lindsay Phillips

Lindsay Phillips was a lumberman in addition to being appointed a wildlife officer by the State of Tennessee. His killing was the subject of one of the chapters of “Murders in the Heartland,” a recent series by the Independent Herald on some of Scott County’s most infamous murders.

On July 5, 1936, Phillips entered a tavern on Highway 27 two miles north of New River. He was armed with a warrant for the arrest of Scott County Sheriff Herbert Bilbrey. 

Unfortunately, it’s not clear what game laws Bilbrey was accused of breaking. Nevertheless, Phillips was there to arrest him and one of his deputies, Dorsey Rosser. Also present were the tavern’s owner, Ralph Haralson, Scott County Circuit Court Clerk Manford Sexton, and a man named Lee Shoopman.

In the moments that followed, Phillips was shot 16 times in the arm, hand, side, stomach and chest. Bilbrey, the sheriff, arrested Haralson and Rosser, but did not say who had done the shooting. “I will tell when court convenes,” he told reporters at the time.

The district attorney, future congressman Howard Baker Sr., successfully sought grand jury indictments against both Haralson and Rosser, but both men were acquitted at trial. Rosser would go on to be elected sheriff on three different occasions in the 1940s and 1950s.

Cemetery location & inventory

The Dewey Phillips Cemetery is located near the end of John Long Road in the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area. From U.S. Hwy. 27 in Helenwood, turn onto Airport Road and travel 1.9 miles before veering left onto John Long Road. Continue 3.5 miles to the cemetery, which is located on the right just before the end of the road.

The cemetery’s coordinates are 36.429126, -84.621416. It is well-maintained.

Betty Phillips, 1873-1945
Charnettie Phillips, 1908-1908
James E. Phillips, 1902-1926
Lindsay H. Phillips, 1880-1936
Nancy Phillips, 1928-1928
Nancy E. Phillips, 1883-1908
Roy Phillips, 1905-1933