Sacred Ground: Terry Cemetery (Paint Rock)

The road to Terry Cemetery couldn’t be much steeper. 

It’s a one-lane, gravel road that climbs a steep incline to a picturesque setting on top of a ridge that juts out above Paint Rock Road. 

This has long been Terry country. In fact, this ridge above Paint Rock has for years been known as “Terry Mountain.” And it is here that several members of the family rest.

This ridgetop is carefully maintained. The small Terry cabin still stands, overlooking the cemetery. An old wooden fence separates the cabin yard from the cemetery, and a number of antique farm implements are scattered about.

Beginnings

This small family cemetery dates back to 1929, when Flossie Smith Terry was buried here. 

Flossie, whose grave is marked by a flat field stone that is hand-inscribed, was the daughter of Alvis Smith and Linda Smith. Her father would be buried at the cemetery when he was hit by a train and killed three years later. 

Flossie, who was born in 1906, married Lawrence Terry (1903-1987) on Nov. 14, 1925. They had two children, daughter Louise, who was born in 1926, and son Odell, who was born in 1928. Flossie’s gravestone is inscribed, “Mother.”

Starling and Sarah Terry

Lawrence Terry was the son of Starling Terry and Sarah Cotton. His paternal grandparents were John Terry and Helen Chitwood, who are buried at the Terry Cemetery off Terry Road closer to town. His great-grandfather was James Terry, who married Mary Matilda Smith, the daughter of Methodist circuit rider Isaac Smith of what is now the Ponderosa community. 

In time, James Terry’s family spread out towards the Tunnel Hill area, and with Starling Terry, on into the Paint Rock community.

Flossie Smith Terry, the wife of Lawrence, was only 23 when she died on June 19, 1929. 

Lawrence Terry would go on to work in the coal mines at Paint Rock, and was a member of Tunnel Hill United Baptist Church. He remarried and had another daughter, Joyce.

Starling Terry, the patriarch of this particular family cemetery, was born in 1876. He married Sarah Cotton, and they had at least seven children besides Lawrence. She died in 1940 and was buried at the family cemetery on “Terry Mountain.” He died in 1962 and was buried there, as well. 

Among the other children of Starling and Sarah Terry: Rosie Lee, born in 1896, married Jerry Ellis and is buried at Pine Hill. Myrtle, born in 1898, married Green Berry Hammock and is buried at Hazel Valley Memorial Cemetery. Howard, born in 1901, married Mary Lee Phillips. He died at age 41 and is buried at the Terry Cemetery. Della, born in 1905, married Isaac Smith and is also buried at Hazel Valley. Ella, born in 1909, married Engram Phillips and is buried at Pine Hill Cemetery. Woodrow, born in 1914, married Lola Reed and was buried at the Terry Cemetery in 1990. Lola was buried there in 2000. Lonnie Terry, born in 1916, married Marie Butler. He is buried at the Peaceful Rose Garden. 

Lawrence Terry was buried at the family cemetery above Paint Rock when he died in 1987, at age 84. 

Lawrence and Flossie’s daughter, Louise, was single most of her life. Late in life, she married Rev. Lora Elzick Blevins. It is Lora Blevins whose farmstead is preserved near Bandy Creek in the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area, though he had moved away from the old farm by the time they married. He died in 1983 and was buried at Katie Blevins Cemetery on his old farm. She died in 1984 and was buried at her family’s cemetery at Paint Rock.

Odell Terry, meanwhile, married Eva Ruth Robbins and is buried at Slick Rock Cemetery in the Brimstone community.

The Smith family

The Terry Cemetery is essentially broken into two parts. At first glance, it looks like an older section further down the ridge and a newer section closer to the old home. That’s not entirely true; Lawrence Terry was buried in the older, lower part when he died in 1987 (he shares a stone with his daughter, Louise, who died in 1984). And Birdie Terry, who died in 1931, is buried in the upper section. 

Nevertheless, the lower section of the cemetery contains a number of unidentifiable graves that are marked by fieldstone only. Based on the layout of these stones, most of them are children’s graves. Based on online sources, some of these may be the children of Elmer and Lottie Smith, including two toddlers who died in the 1930s and two newborns who died in the 1940s. Elmer Smith, the son of John Calvin “Cal” Smith and Martha Slaven, was from the Coopertown area of West Oneida. However, Lottie Smith was from nearby Pine Hill. She was the daughter of Calvin Smith and Mary Jane Hammock. Calvin was a brother to Elijah “Lige” Smith and Thursa (or Thursday) Woods. Lige and Thursa were the parents of Alvis Smith — the father of Flossie Smith. So Lottie Smith was a cousin to Flossie Smith Terry, the young wife of Lawrence Terry and the first person buried at the family cemetery in 1929.

Lige and Thursa Smith had a large family. When the 1900 census was taken, there were nine Smith children living at home: Alvin, Albert, Cordelia, Calvin, Rosa, Luisa, Mary, Lora and Lan. They had at least 12 children overall. Lige was originally from the Station Camp area of the Big South Fork, the son of Elijah Smith and Nancy Weir. Lige and Thursa were the great-grandparents of Oneida Mayor Denzil Pennington (their youngest daughter, Erie Cordelia, married George Pennington, and one of Erie’s children was Dewey Pennington). 

Birdie Smith (spelled “Berdie” on her stone), the second person to be buried at Terry Cemetery when she died in 1931 at age five, was the daughter of Isaac and Della Terry Smith. Della was one of Starling and Sarah Terry’s daughters. Isaac was one of the 12 children of Lige and Thursa Smith.

Other burials

Another child buried at the cemetery was Milo Terry in 1948. The son of Woodrow Terry and Lola Reed, and another of Starling Terry’s grandchildren, he was only nine when he died of typhoid fever.

More recent burials at the cemetery include: 

• Elmer Terry in 1986. He is the son of Howard Terry and Helen Keeton, and a grandson of Starling Terry.

• Claude Terry and his wife, Delores Jones, in 2002. Claude was the son of Howard Terry and a grandson of Starling Terry.

• Jan Terry Morgan in 2003. She was the daughter of Woodrow Terry and a granddaughter of Starling Terry. She married Frank Morgan. She is not actually buried at the cemetery; she was buried in Florida. Her stone is a cenotaph.

• Maudie Terry in 2007. She was a daughter of Howard Terry and a granddaughter of Starling Terry.

• Dustin Wade Terry in 2008. He was the son of Perry Terry and Bobbie Brown. He was a grandson of Claude Terry and a second-great-grandson of Starling Terry. 

• Marsha Terry Cotton in 2020. She was the daughter of Claude Terry and a great-grandson of Starling Terry.

Not mentioned so far is Hannah Smith, who was born in 1929 and died on a date unknown. Her grave is marked by a hand-inscribed field stone that is difficult to read. 

The cemetery and property surrounding it is private land that remains in the hands of the Terry family, currently owned by a great-grandson of Starling Terry and Sarah Cotton.

This story is part of the Scott County Cemetery Project.