Sacred Ground: Elizabeth Honeycutt Cemetery

PostedOctober 27, 2024

UpdatedMay 27, 2025

Bybenwgarrett@gmail.com

HELENWOOD | Tucked away on a hillside near the head of a peaceful valley in the Tunnel Hill community here is a small family cemetery that began with the burial of Elizabeth Crabtree Honeycutt in August 1991.

Containing only seven graves, the cemetery is regularly maintained and is located on the side of a hill that overlooks the home of Elizabeth Honeycutt’s daughter, Dessie Coffey. She was buried a stone’s throw from the small home — now overgrown and collapsing — where she lived much of her life after moving from the vicinity of what is now Oneida City Park. The single-lane road leading to the cemetery is named Elizabeth Road.

The cemetery, well-maintained, represents four generations of the Honeycutt family.

The Crabtree and Marcum families

Born Elizabeth Crabtree on Sept. 14, 1920, Elizabeth Honeycutt was the daughter of William Henderson Crabtree (1881-1936) and Mary Lydia Hutson (1890-1974) of Marcum Creek, near the Smith Creek community in eastern Scott County. She was part of a very large family that included 19 children born between 1907 and 1935.

Willie Crabtree was the son of John Crabtree (1854-1919) and Nancy Marcum (1855-1912). He was a veteran of World War I, and married Mary Lydia Hutson — the daughter of Carter Hutson and Martha Lavina Cross — in 1905. They had 13 children together, including Elizabeth. (He also fathered several children with another woman, Kizzie Anderson.) Willie Crabtree died in 1936 at the age of 54. The death certificate did not state the cause of death. He was buried on the side of the mountain above his home, in a grave that is reachable today only by 4×4 vehicle.

John Crabtree, Willie’s father, was the son of James Crabtree and Elizabeth Smith. The family was listed as living in Scott County when the 1850 census was taken, and in Campbell County when the 1860 census was taken. James and Elizabeth were married in April 1850 in Campbell County. James Crabtree is buried at the Sharp’s Cemetery at present-day Cove Lake State Park in Caryville. John Crabtree was buried in Hawkins County.

Nancy Marcum, Willie’s mother, was the daughter of George Marcum (1816-1891) and Mary Ann Hanks (1822-1887). They’re both buried at the Marcum Cemetery on Marcum Creek. George Marcum was a brother to Hiram C. Marcum, who was forced to flee his Marcum Creek home after being targeted by Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. Hiram Marcum’s daughter — Nancy Marcum Crabtree’s first cousin — was Julia Marcum, the Civil War heroine who lost an eye and a finger defending her home from Confederate attack during the war.

Following the war, George and Mary Ann Marcum were believed to have helped outlaw brothers Jesse and Frank James when the James brothers were in Scott County. Locals have for years referred to a small hollow on Marcum Creek as “Horselot Hollow,” and it is there that George Marcum is believed to have kept the James brothers’ horses.

Mary Ann Marcum died in 1887, and George Marcum died in 1891. It was rumored that the James brothers had paid the Marcums in gold for their troubles. A few years after Mary Ann’s death, her grave was robbed by unnamed persons searching for that gold, as related by historian Esther Sharp Sanderson in her book, County Scott & Its Mountain Folk:

“It was generally understood that the Marcum family, who fed and cared for the fine saddle horses of the outlaws, seemed to always have money regardless of how hard the times were,” she wrote. “It is doubtful whether the Marcums knew the actual identity of the outlaws, but inasmuch as they had to hide their loot, some of it could possibly have been found; while on the other hand, they could have been paid ‘liberally’ for their kindness and services. According to stories told by descendants of the Marcum family that before Mr. Marcum’s death he gave each one of his children $600.00 in gold, and where it came from they never knew.

“Several years after the pounding hooves of the sleek, fleet-footed saddle horses of the James brothers were heard no more, Mrs. Marcum died. As was the custom the neighbors ‘set up’ with the dead. According to tradition, as night wore on, those keeping vigil sometimes fell asleep. Just before daybreak in the eerie stillness of a dimply lighted room, a relative tiptoed softly into the room, and placed something at the foot of the casket. Could this have been some of the hoarded gold of the James brothers?

“Almost three quarters of a century had elapsed when three men on Buffalo decided to find the answer to the buried treasure. Under the cover of darkness, they slipped to the cemetery and dug up the remains of Mrs. Marcum. They did not find the expected pot of gold, but they did encounter the unexpected law who lodged them in the Huntsville jail where one died immediately after, presumably from poisonous fumes from the grave.”

George and Mary Ann Marcum were the great-grandparents of Elizabeth Crabtree Honeycutt.

Marriage and family

Elizabeth Crabtree Honeycutt died in 1991 | Ben Garrett/IH.

Elizabeth Crabtree married John Calvin Honeycutt (1918-1999) in 1937, when he was 19 and she was 17. Like the Crabtree and Marcum families, the Honeycutt family lived at Marcum Creek. In fact, Nancy Marcum’s sister, Mary Jane, was John Honeycutt’s grandmother. She married Edward “Ned” Honeycutt, and one of their sons was James Michael Honeycutt, who married Ida Belle Riseden.

Another of James and Ida Belle’s sons was Elvin Honeycutt. Elvin and John married sisters from the Crabtree family. John married Elizabeth, while Elvin married her older sister, Sylvia.

Elvin Honeycutt was buried at the Honeycutt Cemetery on Marcum Creek, while his wife, Sylvia, was buried at the Rector-Byrd Cemetery at Norma.

John and Elizabeth Crabtree Honeycutt had six children. They later divorced. John Honeycutt remarried and moved to the Cincinnati area, where he was buried in 1999.

The oldest daughter of John and Elizabeth Crabtree Honeycutt was Ida Belle Honeycutt, named for John’s mother. She died when she was just one month old, and was the first person buried at the Honeycutt Cemetery on Marcum Creek. A 4×4 vehicle is needed to reach the cemetery today.

Burials at the cemetery

Elizabeth Crabtree Honeycutt was known as “Ma Honeycutt” to her grandchildren, and as “Liz” or “Lizzie” to most of her friends. She died of cancer in 1991 and was buried on the hill near her home, on property owned by her daughter, Dessie Coffey.

Elizabeth has a daughter-in-law, Patsy Smith Honeycutt, buried a short distance away at the edge of the old Carson Cemetery just off Tunnel Hill Road. Patsy married Elizabeth’s son, Avery, but died in 1974 at the age of 25. She and Avery lived at the bottom of the hill below her grave.

It was 20 years after Elizabeth Honeycutt’s death before another burial occurred at the family cemetery on Elizabeth Road. Her son, Edward Honeycutt, died of colon cancer in 2011, at the age of 69, and was buried at the cemetery. Like his mother, Ed Honeycutt was a longtime member of Tunnel Hill United Baptist Church, where he had served as a deacon for 40 years.

Ed Honeycutt married Lola Dean Davis, and they had three children: Edward Honeycutt Jr., Edwin Honeycutt, and Carol Honeycutt Russell.

Earlier this year, Eddie Honeycutt died of cancer at the age of 59 and was buried at the cemetery next to his father. He and his wife, Donna Finger Honeycutt, had two children, Edward Honeycutt III and Elizabeth Carpenter.

In 2013, Dessie Coffey’s husband Lee Ohnis Coffey, died at the age of 79. He was the son of Johnnie Coffey and Stella Phillips and had three children: Helen Garrett, Johnny Coffey, and James Coffey.

In 2016, Elizabeth Honeycutt’s son, Arzo, died of cancer at the age of 69. He married Clairian Jeffers and lived in Blanchester, Oh. He had two children: Jason Arzo and Elizabeth.

In 2022, twins Madelyn Rose and Aurora Grace Bittner were buried at the cemetery. They were the daughters of Tyrel and Erika Coffey Bittner. Their mother is a daughter of James Coffey. They were Elizabeth Crabtree Honeycutt’s second-great-grandchildren.

Surviving children of Elizabeth Honeycutt, in addition to Dessie Coffey, include Porter Honeycutt and wife Dianna of Ohio, Avery Honeycutt and wife Nella, and Essie Lowe and husband James.