Sacred Ground: The Archie Smith grave

Scattered throughout the 125,000 acres of the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area are at least 58 cemeteries.

There are likely more, but the 58 are the ones that have been located and identified. Among them are large cemeteries like the Katie Blevins Cemetery near Bandy Creek, the Hattie Blevins Cemetery near Rock Creek, and Terry Cemeteryabove No Business Creek. Also among them are mostly forgotten cemeteries like the Nancy Smith Cemetery at No Business Creek and the Owens Cemetery at Station Camp Creek.

Still others are much smaller and less formal burial grounds, often consisting of only one or two graves. One of those is the Archie Smith Cemetery on a ridge near Grand Gap.

Baby Archie Smith died of flux in the Fall of 1932, just five days shy of five months old. He is buried along what is now the Grand Gap Loop Trail, making his grave one of only a small handful of cemeteries in the Big South Fork to be located directly on a hiking trail.

Locals and visitors alike often refer to Archie Smith’s grave as “The Baby Grave.” Hundreds — or perhaps thousands — of hikers and mountain bikers pass by the grave each year along the Grand Gap Loop, but few know the story of baby Archie, his family, and how he died. Sometimes, passersby will place memorial items like small stuffed animals or trinkets.

Born May 27, 1932, Archie Smith was the son of Alford Smith and Elva Choate Smith. He was one of 13 children in the Smith family. Alford Smith (whose name is often alternatively spelled Alfred) had five children with his first wife, Nancy Burke Smith. Following her death in 1925, he remarried to Elva Choate, and they had eight more kids. Baby Archie was the third of those children.

Archie Smith was a grandson of John “Hawk” Smith, who lived across the river near what is now Angel Falls Village. Hawk Smith was one of the most colorful characters who settled along the Big South Fork River, and an ancestor of country singer Anthony Smith. Hawk Smith was a noted moonshiner, and had more than one still site in the area of where his son, Alford Smith, settled on the ridge across the river from the family home.

Hawk Smith married Polly Ann Blevins, a granddaughter of noted Big South Fork settler Armpstead Blevins, and great-granddaughter of Jonathan Blevins, who along with Richard Harve Slaven was one of the first white men to permanently settle the Big South Fork region. Together, Hawk and Polly had several children. The oldest, born in 1891, was Alford Smith.

Alford Smith married Nancy Burke, the daughter of Isaac Burke and Mary Pennington Burke of No Business. Nancy was the great-granddaughter of Jonathan Burke, who settled along the Big South Fork River between Parch Corn Creek and No Business Creek and was the first of the Burke settlers in the Big South Fork region.

There is a bit of confusion about how many children Alford and Nancy Smith had together. Her gravestone, at the Alticrest Cemetery just outside the Big South Fork NRRA in Fentress County, along S.R. 297, says that she died on Feb. 8, 1925. And a marriage certificate states that Alford Smith and Elva Choate were married on June 18, 1825. However, an obituary for Alford Smith’s sixth child, Ruth Smith Porter, who died in 2013, states that she was born on Dec. 24, 1924 and was the daughter of Alford and Elva Choate Smith.

In any event, there is no doubt that Archie Smith was the son of Alford and Elva Choate Smith.

It was not uncommon in the 1800s and even the early 1900s for families in the remote settlements along the Big South Fork River to lose their children to illness, and the many cemeteries scattered throughout the national park bear witness to that. But the Smith family was fortunate in that regard. Little Archie was the only of the 13 children who did not survive to adulthood, though Alford Smith’s first-born, Everett Smith, died young at age 21.

History tells us that baby Archie died of either flux or pneumonia.

Alford Smith first settled his family outside the Big South Fork, closer to Oneida. However, he took a job in the log woods, working for the Stearns Coal & Lumber Co., and moved his family to the area of Three Forks, near Fall Branch and what is today known as Bandy Creek.

The large ridge that Alford Smith established his farm on ends on a point along the river that is the site of Angel Falls Overlook, above the Angel Falls rapid. The ridge also towers over the homeplace of Alford Smith’s father, John “Hawk” Smith. An old road down the ridge passed through a gap in the cliff line that was called Grand Gap, named for Grand Slaven, and crossed the river at the Hawk Smith Place.

Today, the road leading to the Grand Gap Loop Trail in the Big South Fork is named Alford Smith Road. Just beyond where vehicular access ends, at the Grand Gap Loop trailhead, there is a small clearing that is slowly being reforested but still provides evidence of where Smith lived. One of his descendants, Dave Smith, who is a veritable encyclopedia of the Smith family roots and Big South Fork information, said that the old road along the ridge once passed directly through Alford Smith’s barn.

Just a short distance on out the ridge from the Smith homeplace, the Grand Gap Loop Trail leaves the main ridge and starts down a fork ridge towards Angel Falls Overlook. On a knoll before the ridge begins its descent is the grave of Archie Smith.

Why is the grave out there all by itself? As Dave Smith tells it, the family patriarch, John “Hawk” Smith, had planned a family cemetery there. He wanted to be buried there himself, though he was ultimately buried at Hazel Valley in Oneida.

Dave Smith’s father, Claude Smith, “said their grandfather, John Smith, had carefully plotted out what he hoped would be the Smith Family Cemetery there before Archie died,” Dave said. “He wanted to be buried there someday as well as anybody else in the family that wanted to. Dad never knew why he chose that spot on the ridge, but in the coming years, many of the Smiths began to leave the river valley to get work wherever they could. Many of John’s grandsons joined the Army and served when World War II came along. Archie’s parents, who lived about a mile away from here, also moved to Oneida in the 1940s. So that’s why little Archie was left here by himself.”

Alford Smith eventually left Scott County for work in Oak Ridge during WWII.

Archie Smith’s last surviving sibling, Milford Smith, died on Sept. 6, 2022. He was a one-time gas station owner and a longtime member of the Huntsville Utility District Board of Directors. Like his father, grandfather and other members of the Smith family, he was buried at Hazel Valley.

Cemetery census

ARCHIE SMITH GRAVESITE
GPS Coordinates: 36.50076, -84.65185
First Burial: 1932
Last Burial: 1932
Burials since Robert Bailey’s 1994 cemetery census? No

Archie Smith, 1932-1932

This story is part of the Scott County Cemetery Project.