Sacred Ground: Nancy Smith Cemetery
Sometime in the early 19th century, Richard Harve Slaven became the first permanent settler along No Business Creek, in what we now know as the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area. And, when he died in 1840, his grave became the first known burial within the No Business area.
There’s a lot we don’t know about the burial of Slaven and others at what is now known as the Nancy Smith Cemetery. But based on what is known, the cemetery has one of the most interesting histories of any of the dozens of cemeteries found within the Big South Fork NRRA.
Richard Slaven
There are a lot of things about the life and times of Richard Harve Slaven that will forever be a mystery.
For instance, it is said that he was a Revolutionary War veteran. But it’s also said that he was born in 1775. Both things cannot be true, since the Revolutionary War ended with the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783. If Slaven was born in 1775, he would’ve been just eight years old when the Revolutionary War ended. The youngest known soldier in the war was 12-year-old Thomas Young.
The date of his arrival in Big South Fork Country is also a mystery. It has been written that he arrived as early as the 1790s. U.S. governments did not start issuing land grands in the Cumberland Plateau region until 1803, after the signing of the second Treaty of Tellico in 1805, which saw the Cherokee Indians cede ownership of land in this area to the United States.
That’s not to say there were no white settlers who had taken up residence on Indian lands in the frontier prior to the treaties; there were. But there are also court records showing that Slaven and his wife, Susanna Mounts, were married in Garrard County, Ky. — which is located along modern-day U.S. Highway 27 between Somerset and Lexington — on Sept. 17, 1798.
A land record shows that Slaven was granted 1,000 acres along the Big South Fork River in 1817. This property ran along the Big South Fork River from Bear Creek on the Kentucky side to Parch Corn Creek on the Tennessee side. That doesn’t mean he didn’t arrive in the region until 1817, of course; he was likely already living here by the time the grant was received. But best guess places his arrival at No Business around the early 1810s.
The site of Slaven’s home is also something of a mystery. It has generally accepted that he settled along Tackett Creek, which is a tributary of No Business Creek several miles west of the Big South Fork River.
Richard and Susanna Slaven had a number of children, and are the ancestors of most of the Slavens living in Scott County today. In fact, there are two names among those earliest settlers of Big South Fork Country who stand out: Richard Harve Slaven, and Jonathan Blevins. Like Slaven, Blevins arrived in the region in the early 1810s, settling along Station Camp Creek or Parch Corn Creek. Their families multiplied; their children and grandchildren married, and today, of those who have ancestorial ties to the No Business, Parch Corn and Station Camp areas, more than not can trace their roots to one or both of those two men.
While Richard Harve Slaven was the first settler along No Business Creek, his great-grandson, Dewey Slaven, was the last. Dewey Slaven lived about halfway between Dry Branch and Tackett Creek, just below where the Nancy Smith Cemetery was located. He lived in the valley until his death in 1960.
Richard Slaven’s gravesite
It cannot be conclusively proven that Richard Harve Slaven is buried in the Nancy Smith Cemetery. However, there is a stone with the initials “R.S.” and the date “1840” inscribed on it that is believed to mark his grave. The timing is right, and there was no other known early settler of the No Business area who died in that time frame with the initials “R.S.”
With the date 1840, Slaven’s grave is the earliest known burial within the No Business area. It’s likely that there were burials that predated his; after all, permanent settlement began in the region around 30 years earlier, and it’s unthinkable that three decades elapsed with no deaths. But many of the earliest graves in the BSF contain no identifiable inscriptions — and in some cases they aren’t marked at all.
Nancy Smith Cemetery
Originally, the Nancy Smith Cemetery was likely known as the No Business Cemetery. It was the community’s grave yard, and contained more than two dozen graves — though the exact number isn’t clear.
The cemetery became known as the Nancy Smith Cemetery because her stone offers the best record of the cemetery. All of the stones in the cemetery are common field stones, and only three contain legible inscriptions. Nancy Smith’s stone is the only one that contains a full name. The death year inscribed on the stone is 1861.
The only other stones with inscriptions are the R.S. stone assumed to be that of Richard Harve Slaven, and a stone that is inscribed with the name “WS Slaven.” The dates on the latter stone include “JUNE 18 18??” — the exact year is not clear, though the third numeral appears to be an 8, which would place the birth year in the 1880s — along with “DC (deceased) AP 28 1906.”
In his 1994 listing of Scott County’s cemeteries, Robert Bailey mentioned another marker with the date 1841 or 1844. However, recent visits to the cemetery haven’t revealed that stone.
Today, the Nancy Smith Cemetery is completely overgrown, contains much deadfall, and has not been maintained in many years. There are about two dozen identifiable graves, but only three of them have stones with legible inscriptions. The rest are marked by uninscribed field stones.
Was Richard Slaven the first person buried at Nancy Smith Cemetery in 1840? Perhaps. His stone is located in what would’ve been the far northeast corner of the cemetery. But with so many of the stones unmarked, there is no way to know for sure. And because this cemetery is one of only three known to exist along No Business Creek (the other two being the Boyatt family cemetery towards the head of the creek, and the graves of husband and wife Lewis and Mary Ann Burk further downstream), it’s perhaps likely that burials at the community cemetery predated Richard Slaven’s death.
What is known is that the cemetery was used until about 1911, when a landslide occurred at the graveyard. Oral history tells that several of the graves were unearthed by the slide. Those remains were reburied at the top of the ridge, which marked the beginning of the Terry Cemetery. It was there that many of the latter residents of No Business were buried.
There is no record of which graves were unearthed and subsequently relocated from Nancy Smith Cemetery. However, Dorothy Slaven provides information that Shade Slaven was the last person buried there in 1911, and was one of those whose grave was relocated.
So who do all of those unmarked graves at Nancy Smith Cemetery belong to? It’s likely that most of them belong to Slavens — perhaps including Richard Harve Slaven’s wife, Susanna, who is believed to have died in the 1830s. Her burial location is unknown.
The burial location of several of Richard and Susanna Slaven’s children is also unknown. Absalom Slaven, for example, is buried at Chimney Rocks, and Andrew Slaven was buried in Kentucky. But Elisha Slaven’s gravesite isn’t known. Nor is William Slaven’s. Or many of the others (it isn’t clear exactly how many children Richard and Susanna had, but it may have been as many as 13).
Who was Nancy Smith?
One enduring mystery about the Nancy Smith Cemetery that might never be solved is just who Nancy Smith was. The cemetery is named for her, and the name on her headstone is clear, but genealogical records make it difficult to figure out just exactly how she fit into the No Business community.
Much of No Business was settled by Slavens ó though there were others, like Burks and Boyatts and Millers and more. But the area of No Business around the cemetery was certainly Slaven territory, and many of those buried there are believed to be Slavens.
The 1860 census (taken one year before the death of No Businessís Nancy Smith) shows at least six different Nancy Smiths living in Scott County. But none of them appear to fit the profile for the Nancy Smith at No Business.
The most intriguing possibility was Nancy Smith, wife of Elijah Smith and an ancestor to Oneida mayor Denzil Pennington. They lived at Station Camp Creek, where Elijah was buried after he died in 1873. Nancyís burial location isnít clear. However, she showed up in the 1870 census, which would indicate that the Nancy Smith who died in 1861 wasnít her. She and Elijah also had a daughter, born 1859, named Nancy. But the younger Nancy Smith lived a long and fruitful life, and did not die in 1861.
Cemetery Census
NANCY SMITH CEMETERY
First Burial: 1840*
Last Burial: 1911
Burials since Robert Bailey’s 1994 cemetery census? No.
Richard Harve Slaven, 1776-1840
W.S. Slaven, N/A-1906
Nancy Smith, N/A-1861
*Most of the more than two dozen graves at the cemetery are marked with stones containing no inscriptions.
This story is a part of the Scott County Cemetery Project.