Sacred Ground: Terry Cemetery (Big South Fork)
Editor’s Note: Terry Cemetery in the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area has been the subject of past stories in the Independent Herald. However, as part of the Sacred Ground series, we are revisiting every cemetery in Scott County. The story of Terry Cemetery is a continuation of the story of the Big South Fork’s early settlers, as told in part in the Sacred Ground installments on Nancy Smith Cemetery, Katie Blevins Cemetery, Hattie Blevins Cemetery, and Lewis Burk Cemetery. Still to come are BSF cemeteries like Chimney Rock, Station Camp, Owens, Pennington, and Hatfield-Burk.
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Drive as deep into the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area as a motor vehicle can travel, and you will find yourself on a ridge above No Business Creek, the valley in which the highest concentration of residents were found during the Big South Fork region’s settlement era.
Here, at the end of the gravel road, Longfield Branch Trail — now an equestrian trail, once the main road into No Business — heads over the hill, through a gap in the cliff line, and to No Business Creek. Another trail, along the top of the ridge, is a hiking trail that leads to the rock fissure known as Maude’s Crack and then connects to the John Muir Trail.
And here, near the parking lot where folks leave their vehicles and set off on foot or horseback for No Business, is the Terry Cemetery.
Oral history tells that Terry Cemetery got its start in 1911, when a landslide occurred at the community cemetery at No Business. The old Nancy Smith Cemetery was the final resting place of Richard Harve Slaven, No Business’s first white settler, and a number of his descendants, but burials there ended when the landslide unearthed some of the graves.
Today, Nancy Smith Cemetery — named for the only field stone in the cemetery that includes a legible name to mark a grave — is hard to find. And legend has it that the remains that were unearthed there in 1911 were reinterred at Terry Cemetery on top of the ridge.
Whether that’s true — and there is no reason to doubt it — the Terry Cemetery became the final resting place for several of No Business’s residents who died after 1911, including several members of the Slaven family.
There are only about 44 graves at Terry Cemetery, and about half of those are unidentifiable; that is, they are marked by uninscribed field stones. In 1994, when Robert Bailey transcribed all of the cemeteries in Scott County, he listed just 21 graves at Terry Cemetery, and mentioned that there were 23 graves that he could not identify.
However, Pickett County historian Richard W. Pierce, listed several others. And stones have since been placed at some of the graves that were not identifiable in 1994.
The Slaven family
Richard Harve Slaven was the first person to settle No Business when he moved to the valley and built a cabin along Tackett Creek sometime in the early 1800s. It isn’t completely clear when Harve Slaven moved to No Business, but land records show that he was granted 1,000 acres along the Big South Fork River in 1817. He married Susanna Slaven and they had as many as 13 children. They are the ancestors of all the Slavens in Scott County (and many of those in Fentress and Pickett counties) today.
The first grave at Terry Cemetery — besides, perhaps, the remains that were unearthed at Nancy Smith Cemetery in 1911 — was that of baby Myrtle Slaven, who was born and died on July 20, 1923.
Baby Myrtle was the daughter of Benjamin Slaven and Ethel Florence Burk Slaven.
Ben Slaven was the son of Charley Slaven (1861-1934) and Mary Safrona Roysdon Slaven (1872-1957). He was the grandson of Elisha Slaven, and great-grandson of Richard Harve Slaven. That made Myrtle Slaven the great-great-granddaughter of Richard Harve and Susanna Mounts Slaven.
Two more of Ben and Ethel’s children would also die in infancy and be buried at Terry Cemetery alongside Myrtle. That included Wendle, who was born and died on Aug. 29, 1927, and Archie, who was born and died on Sept. 14, 1928.
Today, Myrtle, Wendle and Archie have matching gravestones at Terry Cemetery, which have been placed by members of the Slaven family in recent years. None of the three were included in Bailey’s 1994 cemetery census.
Charley Slaven, the children’s grandfather, was buried at Terry Cemetery when he died on Feb. 15, 1934. His brother, Nimrod Slaven, was also buried there when he died on Jan. 30, 1927. Nimrod’s wife, Mildred Elizabeth “Millie” Roysdon Slaven, was buried there in 1944.
Marion Slaven, Charley’s 24-year-old son, was buried at the cemetery in July 1930. And Reason Slaven, Nimrod’s and Millie’s 45-year-old son, was buried there in August 1951. So, too, was Reason’s wife, Martha Crabtree Slaven, who died in 1947 at age 41, and their daughter, Viola, who died in 1954 at age 11. Martha Crabtree was the daughter of William Hiram Crabtree and Delphia Blevins Crabtree, who are buried at the nearby Hattie Blevins Cemetery.
Also buried at the cemetery is baby Minnie May Slaven, who was born two days after Christmas in 1931 and died just five weeks later, on Feb. 1, 1932.
Dewey Slaven
The last Slaven to be buried at Terry Cemetery was Dewey Slaven, another of Nimrod’s and Milie’s children, when he died on Dec. 16, 1960 at age 75.
Dewey and his sister, Frona, never married. They lived together in their father’s house for most of their lives. In 1960, when Dewey became ill and left No Business to seek medical help, he was the last resident of the valley. With his death, the settlement was officially abandoned.
In his book, Dusty Bits of the Forgotten Past, historian H. Clay Smith wrote this about Dewey Slaven and his sister:
“They never budged from home until the last six months of his life, when he went to Stearns, Kentucky, for medical treatment, dying there while under the doctor’s care.
“Neither he or his sister ever married and it is said that they could live from one year to the next without the help of anyone. They lived in the house where their father had been born and where they grew everything they ate, except salt, coffee and flour. He came to Oneida only about twice a year and then, mostly, to get sweet tobacco and the news, as he called it.
“They had no radio, television or any form of communication with the outside other than with those who might go there on fishing or hunting business.
“If you should have drifted by their house, you would have found no people more friendly or hospitable than these two; whether you were relative, friend or stranger, you were welcome to their well rounded meal, as it is called, and to as many meals and nights’ lodging as you desired; and without charge.”
The cemetery grows
The second identifiable grave at Terry Cemetery was that of Nancy Jane Smith, who died in childbirth on May 8, 1925, at age 41. She was the daughter of Emberson and Mary Jane Stephens Smith, and the wife of William Isaac Smith.
A couple of months later, little Francis Wilborn Blevins died at the age of one, and was buried at Terry Cemetery. He was the son of Crawford and Mary Ann Miller Blevins, who lived at No Business. According to family members, he and another baby in the family, Edna Rose Blevins, both became ill with the flux at the same time. Edna survived, while Francis did not.
Crawford Blevins was the grandson of Armstead Blevins, the great-grandson of Jonathan Blevins, who was another of the early white settlers in the Big South Fork region. Mary Miller Blevins, his wife, was the daughter of Francis Marion Miller, who owned a store at No Business, and Elizabeth Spradling Miller.
Another of France Miller’s grandchildren, Francis Marion Miller, the son of John and Darcus Blevins Miller, was buried at Terry Cemetery when he died in November 1932 at age 30.
Also buried there was one-year-old Isaac Burk, a member of the Burk family that lived at No Business. Baby Kirby was the son of General Jackson Burke and Laura Alice Hall Burke. His grandfather, Isaac Burke, sold his property near the mouth of No Business Creek to France Miller.
The Roysdons
On April 29, 1935, Rev. Isham R. Roysdon died at the age of 68 and was buried at Terry Cemetery. His wife, Minnie Maudie Nelson Roysdon, was also buried there when she died 11 years later.
Maude’s Crack at the end of the ridge — about a mile beyond the cemetery — was named for Maude Roysdon. As the legend goes, Isham Roysdon and his fellow timber-cutters were working in the log woods beneath the cliff lines and Maude would bring him lunch. The men were amazed that the food was still warm when she arrived with it, not realizing that she had discovered a shortcut through the cliff line. Another version of the tale says that Isham and Maude’s house burned and they used the natural passageway through the cliff line to reach a rock house where they sheltered for a period of time.
Today, hikers use Maude’s Crack to access the John Muir Trail that traverses the Big South Fork between Pickett State Park and Honey Creek.
Several of Isham and Maude’s children are buried at the cemetery. Among them are Millie Roysdon, Rosa Roysdon Sweet.
Isham and Maude’s grandson, David Earl Roysdon, was also buried there when he died in January 2012.
A renewed interest
After Dewey Slaven’s death in 1960, Terry Cemetery went more than 50 years with no burials.
However, there have been several burials in recent years, beginning with David Earl Roysdon — the grandson of Isham and Maude Roysdon — in January 2012.
Two years later, Nona Fay Shadrick Roysdon was buried at the cemetery, followed by Beulah Clark Slaven — wife of Bradley Wheaton Slaven — in 2014.
Robert Kenneth “Tommy” Green Jr. — the son of Nona Fay Roysdon — died just a year later and was buried at Terry Cemetery. Tommy was a caretaker of the cemetery; he painted the sign that is currently fastened to the cemetery gate. And a year after that, his sister, Kathy Mylinda “Linda” Green, died and was buried there.
Cemetery Census
TERRY CEMETERY (BIG SOUTH FORK)
GPS Coordinates: 36.57530, -84.68420
First Burial: 1923*
Last Burial: 2016
Burials since Robert Bailey’s 1994 cemetery census? Yes.
Francis W. Blevins, 1924-1925
Kirby I. Burk, 1932-1933
Amy Smith Cooper, 1907-1956
David E. Cooper, 1941-1942
Linda Green, 1962-2016
Robert Green Jr., 1959-2015
Temple Blevins Kidd, 1914-1937
J.B. King, 1948-1948
Ralph King, 1951-1951
F. Marion Miller, 1902-1932
David E. Roysdon, 1953-2012
Isham R. Roysdon, 1867-1935
Millie Roysdon, N/A-N/A
Maudie Nelson Roysdon, 1888-1946
Nona Shadrick Roysdon, 1942-2014
Archie Slaven, 1928-1928
Beulah Clark Slaven, 1947-2014
Carter Ray Slaven, 1949-N/A
Charley Slaven, 1861-1934
Dewey Slaven, 1885-1960
Marion Slaven, 1906-1930
Martha Crabtree Slaven, 1906-1947
Millie Roysdon Slaven, 1868-1944
Minnie May Slaven, 1931-1932
Myrtle Slaven, 1923-1923
Nimrod Slaven, 1863-1927
Reason Slaven, 1906-1951
Viola R. Slaven, 1943-1954
Wendle Slaven, 1927-1927
Nancy J. Smith, 1883-1925
Twins Smith, N/A-N/A
Baby Sweet, N/A-N/A
Richard S. Sweet, 1863-1945
Rosa Roysdon Sweet, N/A-N/A
Allen Watson, 1934-1936
Eliza J. Boyatt Watson, 1895-1956
Hiram Watson, 1886-1959
Oren Watson, 1911-1928
*There are several graves at Terry Cemetery marked with uninscribed field stones.
This story is part of the Scott County Cemetery Project.