Sacred Ground: The Leatherwood Overlook Cemetery
There are dozens of cemeteries throughout the 125,000 acres of the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area.
Some of those cemeteries are large, like the Katie Blevins Cemetery, the Hattie Blevins Cemetery, Chimney Rocks Cemetery and Terry Cemetery.
Most of the Big South Fork’s cemeteries, though, are quite small — often consisting of only one or two graves, such as the Archie Smith Cemetery, the Elijah Smith Cemetery, and the cemetery at John Hawk Smith Place.
Often, these smaller cemeteries are shrouded in mystery — such as the Foote Cemetery near Burnt Mill Bridge. In some cases, the identities of those buried in these cemeteries may never be known.
One of those mysterious cemeteries is located near the Leatherwood Overlook on the west side of the Big South Fork River.
The Thompson Cemetery
Last week, we wrote of the Thompson Fields Cemetery — which, as it turns out, was a pet cemetery for children who lived on the farm at the intersection of Bandy Creek Road and S.R. 297.
This week, we return to the former White Pine community for another mysterious cemetery. And while this one was almost certainly the final resting place for people, their identities aren’t exactly clear.
As detailed in last week’s story, there were several families who lived in the vicinity of the turnoff to Bandy Creek in the latter days of settlement, before the establishment of the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area: Luther and Ivaglen Thompson, Lonnie and Etta Duvall, and James and Juanita Terry, along with a Burke family.
James Terry, in particular, was a prominent property-owner in the White Pine community. He owned about 1,400 acres on the south side of S.R. 297, and his home was located at the top of the hill, directly across from the turnoff to Bandy Creek. It was on the back side of James Terry’s farm that the Thompkins Cemeter — or Thompson Cemetery; more on the name confusion in a moment — was located.
James Terry
Born in 1914, James Elmer Terry was one of eight children of James Calvin Terry (1885-1983) and Angie Nettie Slaven (1887-1963). James Calvin Terry’s great-grandfather, Elijah Terry (1791-1870) was one of the earliest settlers of present-day Scott County and wound up on Parch Corn Creek, where the Armstead Blevins farm was later located. His brother, Josiah Terry, is credited with being the first settler of Oneida.
The Terry family’s roots run deep in Big South Fork Country. Elijah Terry was one of the first white settlers in what is now the national park, and is said to be buried somewhere near Parch Corn Creek. His daughter, Hellen Terry, married Armstead Blevins and is buried on Parch Corn Creek.
James Elmer Terry was a brother to Bertha Terry and Dorothy Terry, the ladies who owned Terry & Terry Store at the intersection of Coopertown Road and Leatherwood Road. He was born in between them; Bertha was born in 1912 and Dorothy was born in 1917.
Terry married Juanita V. Cecil, the daughter of Edgar Cecil (1897-1975) and Zona Payne (1904-1994). They raised a total of 14 children on their farm at White Pine. In addition to farming, Terry worked in the log woods, operated a sawmill, and drove a school bus for Scott County for 30 years. In fact, both he and his wife drove the bus that transported kids from White Pine across the old low-water bridge at Leatherwood Ford to Oneida. In those days, it wasn’t a paved, two-lane state highway as it is today. Instead, only a dirt road connected the communities of Black Oak, Leatherwood and White Pine. There is a photo in the state archives of James Terry driving the school bus across the bridge at Leatherwood as the river waters lap at the wooden surface. The youngest of his 14 children, Michael Terry, recalls having to carefully cross the bridge on foot, holding on to the sides, when water would cover it and the bus couldn’t cross.
A longstanding member of the White Pine United Baptist Church, Terry served as both Sunday school superintendent and church clerk there throughout the years.
Mike Terry, who lives in Oneida with his wife, Benissa, remembers that his father purchased the 1,400 acres of property on the “other side of the river” along with his brothers. They had an agreement that each would have the first opportunity to buy out his brother when the time came. Eventually, James Elmer wound up with the entire 1,400 acres.
The farm was bisected by Bandy Creek, the stream that now lends its namesake to the entire section of the Big South Fork NRRA that was once White Pine. On the south side of Bandy Creek was more farmland, including a large field, owned by James and Juanita Terry, that was called “The Thompson Field.”
Mike Terry recalled that the family’s cattle used to roam an old trail — which has long since faded into the undergrowth of the forest, of course — between the fields along what is now S.R. 297 and the Thompson Field on the other side of Bandy Creek.
Today, Ralph Burke Road serves as a multipurpose trail from the Burke Fields along S.R. 297 to the back of the Thompson Field. From there, a horse trail continues on to Leatherwood Overlook.
It is just off the back side of the Thompson Field, and just off the horse trail, that two side-by-side graves are located. This is, depending on who you ask, the Thompson or Thompkins Cemetery.
Who is buried at the cemetery?
In his 1994 book, Cemeteries of Scott County, Tennessee, which is available for purchase from the Scott County Historical Society, historian Robert Bailey calls this cemetery the “Thompkins Cemetery.” However, he does not have the identities of the two people who are buried there.
According to Mike Terry, the field was always known to those living around White Pine as the Thompson Field. Delmer Thompson, Mike Terry’s brother-in-law who grew up at White Pine but currently lives on Coopertown Road in Oneida, told Terry that he always remembered it being called the Thompson Field, as well, though he said it’s possible that it could have been the Thompkins Field and the references were simply changed to Thompson by mistake over time.
So who are the two people buried there? Several different possibilities exist.
The official story — if the federal government, which now owns the cemetery, is considered the word of record — is that a black laborer was buried here when he was killed during a dispute at a logging job.
“The story of this lone grave is that of a black fellow that was hired and worked with a lumber crew in an area overlooking the Leatherwood Ford, along the Big South Fork of the Cumberland River,” the National Park Service writes on its website. “One day the lumber boss just ‘up and took a club and killed him.’ The assumption being that the ‘boss’ didn’t want to pay out to him his wages. The murdered man ‘…was buried where he fell but nothing was ever done to the killer.’”
The NPS does not cite the source it is quoting for the story. Meanwhile, it should be noted that while the NPS refers to this gravesite as a lone grave and includes a photo of only one headstone, there are clearly two graves at the site, both marked with uninscribed fieldstones.
A separate story that Mike Terry remembers from his youth is that a father and his son were cutting timber in the area and a tree fell on the son, killing him. His father buried the son at the spot where the accident occurred.
Delmer Thompson related yet another possibility to Terry. As he’s heard it told, the graves are those of the man and woman who originally owned the property and cleared the field there — Thompsons or Thompkins — and that’s where they were buried when they died.
Sadly, it was not uncommon in the remote and isolated settlements of the Cumberland Plateau for 19th century burials to take place with only uninscribed field stones marking the graves — especially prior to the Civil War. One likely reason why is that in these remote settlements, which were still largely frontier areas, settlers were consumed with the mere act of survival; they were focused on making it through the day ahead of them, without thinking ahead to someone wanting to visit their gravesite 175 years later.
Today, all we can do is speculate about the identities of those buried in these graves. One thing seems sure, though: whether it was an employee murdered by his boss, a young man killed in a tragic accident, or a husband and wife who cleared the land and made a home there, these graves are the final resting place of those who helped define the rugged terrain of what would eventually become the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area. And the weathered, faded silk flowers that have been laid at each grave bear testament to the fact that while their identities may be unknown, the significance of those buried on the side of this forest trail hasn’t been completely forgotten.
This story is part of the Scott County Cemetery Project.