Sacred Ground: Smokey Creek Cemetery
SMOKEY CREEK | Stroll through the headstones at Smokey Creek Cemetery and you’ll find the names of the earliest families to settle this community, like Lowe and Carroll.
As you might recall from last week’s Sacred Ground series installment, profiling the Lowe Cemetery at Smokey Creek, the Lowes and the Carrolls were the two families that were first on the scene of this fertile stream valley nestled in the Cumberland Mountains: Mikel Low and his family, followed closely by John “Drewry” Carroll and his family.
That was nearly a century before the Smokey Creek Cemetery began in 1897. Prior to that, family cemeteries — like the Lowe Cemetery — served the families who settled the Smokey area. But the Baptist church at Smokey Creek was established by Sterling Adkins — who married a descendant of both the Lowe and Carroll families — in 1873, and Smokey Creek’s first community cemetery was eventually established in the church yard.
The Riverview Cemetery, located where Smokey Creek empties into New River, and where Smokey Junction would be built when the railroad came through many years later, had been established in the 1830s. Today, it is slightly larger than Smokey Creek Cemetery, making it both the oldest and largest cemetery in these remote communities that also includes Norma.
But the Lowes and Carrolls lived several miles from Smokey Junction, giving rise to the need for another community cemetery at the Baptist church there.
The cemetery begins
The first person buried at Smokey Creek Cemetery was one-year-old Esau Carroll, who died in May 1897. He was the son of William Carroll and Louisa Jane Lowe, who would later be buried at the cemetery.
William Carroll was the son of Huston “Huse” Carroll, and a second-great-grandson of John “Drewry” Carroll. Drewry and his wife, Nancy King, moved their family from North Carolina to Smokey Creek shortly after Mikel Low and his family arrived on the scene in the very early 1800s. Drewry’s daughter, Sally, married Mikel’s son, Phillip Low. (It was Phillip and Sally’s daughter, Motlaney, who married Rev. Sterling Adkins.)
Several future generations of the Lowe and Carroll families intermarried, as well — including William Carroll and Louisa Lowe. Louisa was the daughter of Andy Lowe and Mary Carroll. Andy was the son of Phillip Low and Sally Carroll. It isn’t clear who Mary’s parents were, though she was doubtlessly descended from Drewry Carroll and Nancy King.
William’s brother, Hugh Carroll, married Lottie Low after the death of his first wife. She was the daughter of John “Rat” Low and Renee Adkins. Rat Low was a grandson of Mikel Low, the son of Mikel Low Jr., and a first cousin to Andy Lowe.
William and Louisa had a large family, and several more of their children were buried at Smokey Creek Cemetery, including 16-year-old Crusoe in 1912, six-year-old Daley in 1915 and four-year-old Barney in 1926. In 1035, 30-year-old Sam — another of their sons — was killed in a logging accident and buried at the cemetery. Another son buried at the cemetery also died relatively young; Nelson Carroll was only 47 when he died in 1948.
Among the Carroll children surviving to older ages and buried at the cemetery were Lindsey and his wife Bethana Daugherty; Finley and his wife Vianna Massengale; and Elzia. Children not buried at the cemetery included Maude, who married Franklin Goodman Sr. and is buried at Montgomery, near Wartburg; Juana, who is buried at Hazel Valley Memorial Cemetery near Oneida; and Tillmon, who married Lizzie Phillips and is buried at Farmers Grove Cemetery in Clinton.
The cemetery grows
The second person buried at Smokey Creek Cemetery was 46-year-old Henry Lowe, who died in 1902. He was a grandson of Mikel Low; his parents were Mikel Low Jr. and Catherine Massengale. He married Nancy Jane Goodman, who would later be buried at the cemetery.
Nancy Jane was the daughter of John Goodman Sr. and Jane “Jannie” Lowe. Jannie was a granddaughter of Mikel Low — the daughter of Phillip Low and Sally Carroll. She had first married Noah Mason, then married John Goodman after his death.
In 1904, William Hatmaker was buried at the cemetery when he died at the young age of 28. He married Lassa Lowe, the daughter of Alex Low and Myra Massingale. His mother was Nancy Lowe, the daughter of Bill Low and Rebecca Hembree, and a granddaughter of Phillip Low.
The McGhee family
An early family of Smokey Junction not yet discussed — besides the Lowes, the Carrolls and the Adkins — was the McGhee family.
Henry and Nancy Goodman Lowe had daughters, Maggie and Margaret, who married brothers from the McGhee family: Maggie married Birchfield and Margaret married Brassfield.
Birchfield and Brassfield were the sons of Thomas McGhee Sr. and Sarah “Sallie” Lowe. Sallie Lowe was the daughter of Phillip Low and Sally Carroll, and a sister to Jannie Lowe Goodman, making her an aunt to Nancy Jane Goodman.
Thomas McGhee was the son of John McGhee and Judy Cole. The McGhee family lived in the Beech Fork area of Campbell County, just up river from Smokey Junction.
The fourth person buried at Smokey Creek Cemetery, in 1908, was Sallie McGhee Carroll. She was a sister to Birchfield and Brassfield, and the first wife of Hugh Carroll, who was William Carroll’s brother. It was following Sallie’s death that Hugh married Lottie Low.
The McGhee family is not well-represented at Smokey Creek Cemetery. Birchfield and Maggie are buried in Caryville. Brassfield was buried at Coalfield, and it’s not known where Margaret was buried.
However, in addition to Birchfield and Brassfield’s sister being buried at the cemetery, Birchfield and Maggie had a daughter, Jane, who was buried at the cemetery when she died in 1914 at age two.
Meanwhile, Birchfield and Brassfield had a brother, Sampson, who married Susannah Low, a granddaughter of Phillip Low and Sally Carroll. One of their sons, Ulysses S. McGhee, was buried at the cemetery when he died in 1984 at age 87. He married first to Lillie Lowe, and later married to Modie Mason, who is buried at Smokey Creek. Their daughter was Elsie Mason, who married Edmon Leon Lowe, a third-great-grandson of Mikel Lowe. They died one day apart earlier this year and were buried at Smokey Creek.
The Kennedy family
The first burial at Smokey Creek Cemetery that had no immediate ties to the Lowes or the Carrolls was 10-year-old Celia Kennedy, who died in February 1909. Her death was reported by “Little Phillip Low,” according to her death certificate, which lists “Blood pisan” (poison) as the cause of death.
Celia was the daughter of William “Jackson” Kennedy and Abigail Neal, who are buried at nearby Beech Grove in Anderson County, where the Kennedy family was originally from.
The Kennedy family was tied to the Carroll family, although not immediately. Jackson Kennedy’s great-grandmother was Nancy King Carroll, one of the first settlers on Smokey Creek.
Celia, who was named for her paternal grandmother, was the oldest of the Kennedy children. She had a brother, Luchian, who died in 1918 at the age of 17 and was buried at Smokey Creek Cemetery. His cause of death is unclear, but he died at the height of the Spanish Flu epidemic, which claimed many young lives in Scott County and throughout the United States.
The rest of the Kennedy children — Martha Jane, Bethana, Ernie and Marshall — lived long lives and are buried in Anderson County.
Meanwhile, there have been other Kennedys — also tied to the Kennedy clan from Beech Grove — who were buried at Smokey Creek in recent years.
The first of those was Richmond Kennedy, who died in 1990. He was the son of Virgil Kennedy and Becky Bowling. He married Violet Mae Lowe, the daughter of Joe Lowe and Celia Goad, great-granddaughter of Phillip Low, and second-great-granddaughter of Mikel Low. Violet was buried at Smokey Creek in 2013.
Virgil Kennedy, who was buried at the nearby Lowe Cemetery in 1970, was the son of Pryor Richmond Kennedy and Mahelia Lowe. His mother was a great-granddaughter of Mikel Low, through Mikel Low Jr. and Rat Low.
Richmond Kennedy was named for his great-grandfather, Richmond Kennedy. His grandfather, P.R. Kennedy, was a brother to Jackson Kennedy, who was the father of Celia and Luchian Kennedy.
Baby Jerrianda Lynn Kennedy was buried at Smokey Creek in 1991. She was the daughter of Randy and Tammy Kennedy. Randy was one of three sons of Richmond and Violet Lowe Kennedy.
Finally, Kenneth Kennedy was buried at Smokey Creek last year. He was the son of John Riley Chambers and Cordelia Kennedy. Cordelia was a sister to Richmond Kennedy and has two other children buried at Smokey Creek: baby Bessie Kay Lowe, who died in 1959, and an infant daughter.
The Mason family
One of the most prominent names found at Smokey Creek, one mentioned a couple of times previously in this story, is Mason.
Baby Franklin Mason was buried at the cemetery in 1917. He was just shy of three months old. He was the son of Fielding Mason Sr. and Minie Seiber, and part of a large family that included a dozen children.
Fielding Mason, who would be buried at the cemetery in 1969 (and his second wife, Stella Griffith, in 1983), was the son of William Thomas Mason and Juliann Newport — both of whom are also buried at Smokey Creek. He was a brother to Modie Mason, who married Ulysses S. McGhee and has two babies buried at Smokey Creek (along with daughter Elsie Mason Lowe, who passed earlier this year).
The Masons, like so many other residents of the Smokey Creek community, were descended from Grand Mikey Low. William Thomas Mason — the grandfather of baby Franklin Mason — was the son of Noah Mason and Jane “Jannie” Lowe. She was the daughter of Phillip Low and Sally Carroll. You might recall that the second person buried at Smokey Creek, Henry Lowe, married Nancy Jane Goodman, the daughter of Jannie Lowe through her second marriage to John Goodman Sr. (who she married after Noah Mason died prior 1859).
Noah and his siblings — the children of Robert Lewis Mason Jr. and Betsy Laws — were from Bell County, Ky. Noah had a sister, Tabitha, who married Riley Lowe, a brother to Jannie Lowe.
Fielding Mason had other children buried at Smokey Creek: Bill Mason, who died in 1979; Rebecca Mason, who was just 19 when she died in 1942; baby Clifford, who died in 1929; baby D.T., who died in 1932; Fielding Jr., who married Josie Byrd and died in 2007; and Elmer, who died in 1987.
Fielding Mason’s brother, Starling, was buried at Smokey Creek in 1985. He first married Stella Low, who died in 1932 at age 35 and was buried at the cemetery. She shares a stone with Starling’s second wife, Ollie Lowe, who died in 1948 at age 41. Starling last married Arnie Carroll, the daughter of Hugh Carroll and Lottie Low, who was buried at the cemetery in 1983.
Starling’s granddaughter, Cora Mason, was buried at the cemetery in 1948. She was the newborn daughter of Hobert Mason, who married Emma Lowe. Hobert was buried at the cemetery in 1969 (Emma remarried and was buried at Hazel Valley in 2013).
Another Mason baby, Cletus Ray, was buried at the cemetery in 1949. He was also the grandson of Fielding Mason, the son of Bill Mason and Irma Lee Lowe (who was buried at the cemetery in 2014).
Fielding Mason’s brother, Frank, was buried at Smokey Creek in 1965. He married Ronea Lawson, who was buried there in 1986. Frank and Ronea’s grandson, Donald Eugene, was buried at the cemetery in 1967. His mother was Verlie Mason, who was buried at the cemetery in 2016.
The cemetery today
With right at 300 burials, Smokey Creek Cemetery continues to grow. There have been five people buried at the cemetery thus far in 2024, including Edmon Lowe and his wife Elsie Mason, who died last month.
Other burials at the cemetery this year include Billy Wayne Smith, who died just last week. He was the son of Estel Ray Smith, who was buried at the cemetery in 2001, and Dorise Gibson, who was buried there in 1983. He also had a brother, Eddie Dean Smith, buried at the cemetery in 1994. Also buried at the cemetery in 2024 were Moses Lowe and Billy Ray Graham. Moses was the son of Henry Lowe and Cynthia Patterson, who are buried at the cemetery, and a third-great-grandson of Mikel Low.
Cemetery Census
SMOKEY CREEK CEMETERY
GPS Coordinates: 36.25540, -84.39499
First Burial: 1897
Last Burial: 2025
This story is part of the Scott County Cemetery Project.