Sacred Ground: Lowe Cemetery
At some point in the early 1800s, a young Pennsylvania man named Mikel Low moved with his family to Tennessee by way of Virginia and North Carolina, settling on Smokey Creek in what is now Scott County. It is said that young Mikel — “Grand Mikey,” as he came to be called — was the first white settler in Scott County. One historian even wrote that “Grandmike,” as he called him, was the first settler of Knoxville and even “sold the town” for a pony before moving to Smokey Creek.
It is impossible to prove that Mikel Low was indeed the first settler of Scott County. But there’s also no factual reason to dispute it. And his roots run deep. Today, he is the forefather of almost all the Lowes in Scott County. Many of them remain in eastern Scott County, but you can find Grand Mikey’s descendants in pretty much any corner of this community.
Grand Mikey was buried just up the hill from Smokey Creek when he died in 1852. Many of his family, including his wife, his children, and many of his grandchildren, were also buried there. Today, there are more than 85 graves located at Lowe Cemetery.
The Lowe family
It is difficult to pin down exactly when Mikel Low moved to present-day Scott County. In her book, County Scott and Its Mountain Folk, historian Esther Sharp Sanderson wrote that Low moved to Smokey Creek in 1776, the same year the American forefathers signed the Declaration of Independence. That’s almost certainly inaccurate; there’s nothing to suggest that Low was born prior to 1771, which would have made him only five years old in 1776. Additionally, records reveal that he married his wife, Maria Elizabeth “Betsey” Bortner, in Pennsylvania in 1794.
The earliest records placing Low on Smokey Creek aren’t found until 1830, when the U.S. census was taken. Smokey Creek was at that time a part of Anderson County; Scott County was not formed until 1849. However, it’s likely that the Lows arrived at Smokey Creek long before that 1830 census. There are records showing that Low served in the 5th Regiment of the East Tennessee Militia in the War of 1812, when Americans again found themselves battling the British, so he had almost certainly moved to Smokey Creek by that time.
Mikel Low was the son of Johan Phillip Lau and Maria Magdalene Gentler Lau, of Tulpehocken Township, Penn. If you’ve ever wondered about the Scott County pronunciation of Lowe — it’s pronounced in a way that rhymes with “ow” here; most of the rest of the U.S. pronounces it in a way that rhymes with “low” — The way Grand Mikey’s parents spelled their name is a pretty good indication that this area’s unique pronunciation was unique to the family, and not just unique to Scott County.
Lau is a German name (though Lowe was also a common name in both England and France during the time of Grand Mikey’s parents and grandparents). Mikel Low was of German descent. His ancestors hailed from the Palatine region along the border of France, Germany, and Switzerland. If you want to be technical, records indicate that Grand Mikey’s great-grandfather, Hans Theobold Lau, lived in Alsace, France, after being born in Switzerland. That would technically make the Lows French. But Alsace, while located on the France side of the border, was influenced much more by the German culture than by the French culture. In fact, it was long at the center of the German-speaking world.
In 1732, Mikel Low’s grandfather, Johan Christian Lau, and a brother, Conrad Lau, left the region and sailed to the American colonies, landing in Pennsylvania with many other German immigrants. Ship records show that Mikel Low’s father, Phillip, was a passenger on that journey. He would have been approximately six years old at the time.
Mikel Low married Maria Elizabeth “Betsey” Bortner. The Bortner family also sailed from the Palatine area along the French-German border to Pennsylvania about the same time as the Lau family. They were married in the Pennsylvania township where both families lived in 1794.
It is commonly accepted that Mikel Low received a land grant on Smokey Creek from the North Carolina government. That information appears to originate in Sanderson’s book, in which she writes, “It included the land which borders on each side of Upper Smoky, to the top of the mountains on both sides. The fertile creek bottoms were planted in corn and vegetables, and the vast tracts of virgin timber remained uncut for many years as a haven for the wild animals which were plentiful at that time.”
If Low did receive a land grant from the North Carolina government, it would have been prior to 1796, the year that Tennessee was granted statehood.
With that in mind, it seems likely that Mikel and Maria “Betsey” Low moved to Smokey Creek sometime between 1794 and 1812. It appears that Grand Mikey inherited a sizable chunk of property from his father, who died when Mikel was only 10, and sold it shortly before his marriage. Later, the Lows followed Grand Mikey’s sister to North Carolina before eventually continuing to Tennessee.
The Lows had several children, including Mikel Low Jr. (1795-1879), Jacob William Low (1800-1860), Phillip Low (1801-1885), Elizabeth Low Shoopman (1805-1884), Joseph Josiah Low (1810-1880), Mary Ann Low (1813-1885), and likely at least one more.
The Low spelling
It’s interesting to note several different spellings of the Lowe surname at the family cemetery on Smokey Creek. In addition to Low, it is spelled “Lo,” “Loe” and, finally, “Lowe.” Overwhelmingly, most members of the family buried at Smokey Creek spelled their name “Low.”
Grand Mikey was apparently the first in his line of the Lau family to begin spelling his name is “Low,” though it’s unclear how that came about. His children and grandchildren continued with the “Low” spelling. The first person buried at Lowe Cemetery who used the modern-day spelling of Lowe — at least according to his headstone — was Gorge Lowe, who was born in 1879 and died in 1918. He was a second-great-grandson of Grand Mikey.
Gorge Lowe’s siblings, however, all spelled their name “Low” — again, at least according to their headstones. However, their grandfather, Joseph Lowe, and several of his grandfather’s siblings spelled their name “Lowe,” as it is spelled today. By the generation after Gorge Lowe — including his children, nieces and nephews — Lowe became the commonplace spelling.
Genealogy dispute
As a final note: some genealogists from elsewhere in the Lowe lineage have cast doubt on the idea that Mikel, son of Phillip Lau, and his wife Maria Bortner are the Low family who moved to Smokey Creek. However, it is commonly accepted by descendants in Scott County who have traced their ancestry that Smokey Creek’s Mikel Low was indeed the son of Phillip Lau and the husband of Maria Bortner.
Certainly, there is no doubt, based on historical records, that Mikel Low lived in Scott County (though his name was spelled “Michael Lowe” in some of the later records). Unfortunately, census records only included the names of heads of household prior to 1850. While Mikel Low is listed in the 1830 and 1840 censuses in Anderson County, he does not appear in the 1850 census. He was still alive and in Scott County (which was formed in 1849), however; he filed an affidavit in 1851 to attest to his service in the War of 1812. It was witnessed by justice of the peace W.W. Cotton and certified by county court clerk Allen McDonald.
The cemetery begins
The first burial at Lowe Cemetery on Smokey Creek may not have been Grand Mikey Low, who died in 1852. In fact, the first burial may have come a generation earlier.
There’s a field stone in the cemetery that is hand-inscribed with the initials “E.L.” The dates are hard to make out, but as genealogist Tim West first noted in his transcription of the cemetery, the death year may have been 1824. The numerals 1, 8 and 4 are easy to make out. It is the next-to-last number that is difficult to interpret, though it does seem reasonable that it is a 2.
If the date is indeed 1824, and the initials “E.L.” could be reasonably interpreted, this could be the oldest identifiable grave in Scott County. When the historian Robert Bailey published his cemetery listing in 1994, he documented the oldest identifiable grave as James Trammell, who died in 1826 and is buried at Angel-Wright Cemetery east of Winfield. The oldest known headstone is dated 1812, and is located at the Davis Cemetery in Winfield. However, it is a broken stone that does not have a name. (It’s worth noting that Bailey did not include the E.L. headstone in his transcription of Lowe Cemetery in his 1994 book.)
So who was E.L.? That’s very difficult to say with any certainty. It was almost certainly a Lowe, perhaps a grandchild of Grand Mikey. Census records are not much help that far back, because they only named heads of household, and not their spouses, children, or other dependents in the home.
However, none of Mikel Low’s known children died as early as 1824, and it does not appear that any of their spouses did, either. That would perhaps lend credence to the idea that E.L. was a grandchild of Grand Mikey.
Also in the cemetery, included both in Bailey’s 1994 book and in West’s more recent transcription, is a field stone hand-inscribed with the initials “M.L.” This is believed to be the grave of Grand Mikey’s son, Michael Low Jr. However, he died much later, in 1879.
Grand Mikey would be buried at the cemetery when he died in 1852. His wife, Maria “Betsey” Bortner Low, is assumed to have been buried there when she died, perhaps as late as the 1870s. However, a headstone has not been located, and she was not included in either West’s or Bailey’s transcriptions of the cemetery.
The Carroll family
The third person known to be buried at Lowe Cemetery was Sarah “Sally” Carroll Low, in 1864. She was Grand Mikey’s daughter-in-law, and the wife of Phillip Low, who would die and be buried by her side in 1885.
Sally and Phillip had at least 13 (and perhaps as many as 15) children, one of whom was Motlaney Lowe, wife of Rev. Sterling Adkins. He founded the Baptist church at Smokey Creek in the mid 19th century, as well as the church on Upper Jellico Creek, where he moved later in life. He and Motlaney are buried at the Adkins Cemetery there.
The Carroll family settled on Smokey Creek shortly after the Lowe family. Sally was the daughter of John “Drewry” Carroll and Nancy King, who moved to Smokey Creek from North Carolina. Some genealogists say that Nancy was a Cherokee Indian.
The Carrolls had relatively few children, by the standards of the time. Sally had a sister, Martha Katherine, who married into the Hembree family that had also moved to Smokey Creek by that time. She married Meshack Hembree in 1831. Her husband would go on to be a noted soldier in the Civil War.
Many years later, several more Carrolls would be buried at the Lowe Cemetery, beginning with the children of Hugh Carroll and Lottie Low. Baby Carl Carroll was buried at the cemetery in 1930, and his twin sister Charlene Carroll was buried there a year later. Their sister, Arnie Mabell, had a newborn daughter buried at the cemetery in 1931, as well. Their mother, Lottie, then died at the age of 37 and was buried at the cemetery just before Christmas in 1931. Her 18-year-old son, Johnie Carroll, was buried at the cemetery in 1938. Columbus Carroll, another son of Hugh Carroll from an earlier marriage, was buried at the cemetery in 1940. Hugh’s son, Billie, was buried there in 1944. Hugh was buried at the cemetery in 1953, and Columbus’s 12-year-old son, Darl Ray, was buried there in 1954. Columbus’s wife, Dora Massengale, was buried there in 1975.
Hugh Carroll was the son of Huse Carroll and Angeline Mason. His great-grandfather, Morton Carroll, was a brother to Sally Carroll Low.
The Shoopman family
Two years after Sally Carroll Low’s death, John Shoopman Jr. was buried at the cemetery. Like many of the other early burials at the cemetery, his grave is marked by a hand-inscribed field stone. He was the husband of Grand Mikey’s daughter, Elizabeth, who is believed to have been buried at the cemetery in 1884. (Her grave cannot be identified, and is likely unmarked.)
John Shoopman had a son, Joseph Shoopman, who was one of the few Scott Countians to fight with the Confederate army during the Civil War. Another son, Milton Shoopman, fought for the Union army, as a member of the 2nd Tennessee Volunteer Infantry.
While John and Elizabeth Shoopman are the only Shoopmans to be buried at Lowe Cemetery, this union between John Shoopman and Grand Mikey’s daughter began the long-running Shoopman family of the Norma and Smokey Creek communities.
John Shoopman was the son of John Shoopman Sr. and Sarah Smith. He was one of at least eight children. The Shoopmans were originally from Virginia, but John and Sarah Smith Shoopman moved to the Cumberland Plateau some time after their marriage in 1795.
Like the Lowe family, the Shoopman family was of German descent. John Shoopman’s grandfather, Nicholas Shoopman, was born in Germany and migrated to the American colonies prior to his marriage to Susanna Krombach, which took place in Pennsylvania in 1766. At some point between 1810 and 1830, the Shoopmans made the move to Campbell County. Nicholas and Susanna Shoopman were on that trip, along with John Shoopman Sr. and his wife, Sarah.
The cemetery grows
It was another eight years after John Shoopman’s death before the fifth burial took place at the cemetery. Phillip Low (spelled “Lo” on his headstone) was buried there in 1874. Little additional information is available, including the year he was born. There were four men named Phillip Low living in Scott County when the 1870 census was taken. However, none of those four is an obvious match for the Phillip Low buried at Lowe Cemetery in 1874.
In 1875, two more members of the Lowe family were buried at Lowe Cemetery. Like Phillip, their graves were marked with hand-inscribed fieldstones that did not include a birth date. Tabitha Low (spelled “Loe”) died in January 1875, and James Low (spelled “Lo”) died in May 1875.
There was no Tabitha Low listed in Scott County when the 1870 census was taken. The only James Low listed in the 1870 census was the the son of Andrew and Colly Low, who did not die until many years later.
Tabitha Low appears to be Tabitha Mason Low, the wife of Riley Low, who died in Knox County, Ky. at the age of 48. Riley was the son of Phillip and Sally Carroll Low. (Remember, his father died in 1885; thus, he is not the Phillip Low buried at Lowe Cemetery in 1874.) However, Riley Lowe is also believed to have died in 1875, and he is not known to be buried at Lowe Cemetery.
The Massengale family
In 1877, Serrilda Low Massengale, known as “Eldrey,” was buried at Lowe Cemetery. She was only about 19 at the time of her death.
Eldrey was the daughter of Riley Low and Tabitha Mason, who may have been buried at the cemetery two years earlier. She married Jordan Massengale in 1874 and they had two children.
Jordan Massengale remarried to Sarah “Sally” Low after Eldrey’s death, and they had several more children. He was also buried at Lowe Cemetery, though the year he died isn’t clear. Like Eldrey, he was buried with a concrete head stone that is hand-inscribed. Several other members of the family have similar headstones.
The Massengale family was well-established in eastern Scott County by the mid 1870s. However, it’s not clear who Jordan Massengale’s parents were. Nor is it clear who were the parents of his second wife, Sally Lowe, although she was buried at Lowe Cemetery with a stone similar to her husband’s.
Two other Massengale graves at Lowe Cemetery have markers similar to those of Jordan and his wives. One is James Massengale, who was Jordan Massengale’s son by his second wife. He died in 1948, at age 67. The other is George Massengale, who was also the son of Jordan and Sally Massengale. He was born in 1881, but it’s not clear when he died.
The cemetery today
The most recent burial at Lowe Cemetery was James Lowe, who died in August at age 78. He was the son of Odas and Wanda Carroll Lowe, who were previously buried at the cemetery. He was a third-great-grandson of Grand Mikey Low. Odas Lowe’s father was Alfred Lowe, the son of John “Rat” Low. Rat Low was the son of Mikel Low Jr., who was buried at the cemetery in 1879.
Oscar Lowe was buried at the cemetery in 2021, when he died at age 45. He was a grandson of Odas and Wanda Carroll Lowe, a nephew of James Lowe. He had a sister, Lessa Lowe Hicks, who was buried at the cemetery in 2008. Lessa has two children buried at the cemetery: Charles Wade Lowe in 2019 and baby Jerica Davis in 1992.
Cemetery Census
LOWE CEMETERY
GPS Coordinates: 36.24585, -84.39495
First Burial: 1824
Last Burial: 2024
Billie B. Carroll, 1918 – 1944
Carl D. Carroll, 1930 – 1930
Charlene Carroll, 1930 – 1931
Columbus Carroll, 1901 – 1940
Darl R. Carroll, 1941 – 1954
Dora Massengale Carroll, 1909 – 1975
Gerene Carroll, 1931 – 1931
Hugh Carroll, 1872 – 1953
Johnie Carroll, 1920 – 1938
Lottie Low Carroll, 1894 – 1931
Jerica Allen Davis, 1991 – 1992
Thomas Gillette, 1924 – 1924
Lessa Lowe Hicks, 1969 – 2008
Charlene Jones, 1938 – 1939
Juarlene Jones, 1935 – 1935
Mahalia Lowe Kennedy, 1876 – 1906
Nathan Kennedy, 1904 – 1910
Rebecca Bowling Kennedy, 1897 – 1943
Virgil Kennedy, 1897 – 1970
E. L., N/A – 1824
Phillip Lo, N/A – 1874
Tabitha Loe, N/A – 1875
Ada Low, 1896 – 1900
Bertha Gibson Low, 1892 – 1951
Carrie Low, 1896 – 1912
Cilus Low, 1892 – 1960
George Low, 1884 – 1886
George Givens Low, 1884 – 1884
Infant Daughter Low, N/A – N/A
James Low, N/A – 1875
John Low, 1845 – 1933
John F. Low, 1890 – 1905
John R. Low, 1853 – 1921
Maria Bortner Low, 1774 – 1879
Michael Low Jr., 1795 – 1879
Mikel Low Sr., 1771 – 1852
Nancy A. Adkins Low, 1858 – 1930
Nancy C. Chambers Low, 1852 – 1924
Phillip Low Sr., 1801 – 1885
Rosa Low, 1888 – 1898
Roxana Low, 1898 – 1899
Salina Massengale Low, 1846 – 1904
Sarah Jane Low, 1884 – 1885
Sarah Jane Adkins Low, 1861 – 1942
Sarah Carroll Low, 1806 – 1864
Thomas Low, 1853 – 1930
William H. Low, 1912 – 1912
Anna Burress Lowe, 1946 – N/A
Arvil Lowe, 1939 – 2011
Charles W. Lowe, 1987 – 2019
Clearence Lowe, 1942 – 2005
Daniel Lowe, 1941 – 2014
David Lowe, 1957 – 2008
Eller Lowe, 1912 – 1930
George Lowe, 1879 – 1918
Georgie Lowe, 1919 – 1919
Infant Lowe, 1911 – 1911
Infant Lowe, 1914 – 1914
Infant Lowe, 1936 – 1936
James A. Lowe Sr., 1946 – 2024
John Lowe, 1830 – 1869
John J Lowe, 1845 – 1932
Kendle Lowe, 1953 – 1953
Nella Lois Lowe, 1924 – 1956
Odas Lowe, 1924 – 1977
Oscar Wayne Lowe, 1975 – 2021
Pitney Lowe, 1917 – 1918
Roger Lee Lowe, 1954 – 1975
Sarah Adkins Lowe, 1887 – 1931
Wanda Carroll Lowe, 1924 – 2000
Zettie Lowe, 1915 – 1916
Carrie Carroll Massengale, 1914 – 1932
Esaw Massengale, 1912 – 1934
George Massengale, 1881 – N/A
James G. Massengale, 1881 – 1948
John F. Massengale, 1872 – 1952
Jordan Massengale, 1856 – N/A
Mary Bunch Massengale, 1883 – 1953
Sarah Lowe Massengale, 1854 – 1933
Serrilda Lowe Massengale, 1857 – 1877
Anna Matheson, 1920 – 1920
Tinsley Burton Matheson, 1907 – 1913
Ramsey McGhee, 1898 – 1980
Elizabeth Low Shoopman, 1805 – 1884
John Shoopman Jr., 1803 – 1866
Infant Son Woods, 1905 – 1905
This story is part of the Scott County Cemetery Project.