Smithers Cemetery
ROBBINS | In a peaceful, wooded wetting along the railroad tracks here, directly in back of the masonic lodge on Sims Road, is the Smithers Cemetery.
This small, well-maintained cemetery dates back about 100 years, and has grown to include about five dozen graves. It is named after the Smithers family that has long been prominent in the Robbins area; a family whose roots can also be found at the Black Creek Crossroads Cemetery and Kilbeck Cemetery near here.
Smithers Cemetery is unique for the number of hand-made headstones, often hand-painted rather than engraved, that are located here. It is often called the Moffitt-Smithers Cemetery. Indeed, the Moffitts buried here far outnumber the Smithers, but the Moffitt family has its roots in the Smithers family; the two are deeply connected.
The Smithers family
We first visited the Smithers family when we profiled Black Creek Crossroads Cemetery, which is located a couple of miles away as the crow flies and is the second-largest cemetery in Scott County (behind Hazel Valley Memorial Cemetery).
The Black Creek Crossroads Cemetery began in 1891 with the burial of Rebeckey Smithers, the infant daughter of James “Bud” Smithers (1868-1933) and Zelphia West (1871-1952). And it’s with baby Rebeckey’s parents that the Smithers Cemetery began.
Bud Smithers was a veteran of the Spanish-American War, the son of Reuben Smithers (sometimes spelled “Smither”) and Anna Lawson. Reuben Smithers (1828-1881) was a veteran of the Civil War, serving in Co. F of the 1st Tennessee Infantry. (There was a separate Rubin Smithers from Scott County who served in the Civil War, as well.)
Reuben Smithers was the son of William Smithers and Eva Sanders, both of whom are buried at Kilbeck Cemetery a short distance away. He was one of five children. His siblings include Jane Smithers Lackey, Nancy Smithers West, Ephram Smithers and Polly Smithers. Their father, William Smithers, was originally born in Virginia before coming to Tennessee and settling on Black Creek.
It is not clear where Reuben Smithers or his wife, Anna, are buried.
Zelphia West was the daughter of Reuben West and Rebecca Sexton. Her father was a veteran of the Civil War. He is buried at Helenwood Cut Cemetery. Her mother was the great-granddaughter of Revolutionary War veteran Timothy Sexton.
Bud and Zelphia were married in 1889. They had at least 10 children, including Nathan “Nate” Hurst, Rebeckey, Anna, Mary, Archie Robbins, James William, Ella, Bessie, Pearl, and another child who died at birth.
While Rebeckey was buried at Black Creek Crossroads in 1891, the other Smithers child who died in infancy is one of the many babies buried at the Smithers Cemetery. However, the dates of her birth and death are not known. The handwritten stone at her grave simply reads, “Baby Smithers.”
Nate Hurst married Nancy Smith, and later married Geneva Lawhorn. He had four children and died near Danville, Ky. in 1960.
Annie married William Moffitt Jr. — that’s where the Moffitt family came into play here — and had six children. She and her husband are buried at Smithers Cemetery.
Mary Elizabeth, known as Lizzie, married William T. Bowling. She is also buried at Smithers Cemetery.
Archie died in 1945 at the age of 42 and is buried at Smithers Cemetery with a handmade concrete stone.
James William married Mildred Griffith. He died in 1982 and is buried in the Lancing community in Morgan County.
Ella married Isaac J. Davidson. She died in 1972 and is buried at Smithers Cemetery.
Bessie Smithers apparently moved to Ohio and lived to an old age.
Pearl married Roy Freeze and moved to North Carolina, where she died in 1993 at age 91. She had a 9-month-old son, Dewey Howard, who was buried at Smithers Cemetery in 1939.
Bud Smithers was buried at Smithers Cemetery in 1933. Zelphia West Smithers was buried there in 1952.
The cemetery begins
The first person to be buried at Smithers Cemetery may not have been a Smithers. Rather, it may have been Charles Elmer Mullins, a teenager who died on April 1, 1924.
Charles was the son of Henry S. Mullins and Louvinia Cope, and was just 15 when he died in a railroad accident in Rockwood. His foot was crushed by a train and he bled to death before he could be saved. A death certificate simply stated that he was buried at Robbins.
The Mullins family was originally from Pickett County, but Henry and Lou moved to the Mountain View community near Robbins. Henry and Lou were both buried at the Storey Cemetery in Mountain View when they died in the 1950s.
Charles had several siblings, including Hattie Mullins, McKinney Ambrose Mullins, Ella Mullins, J. Carroll, and James Alfred. Most of his siblings are buried at Storey Cemetery, though he has siblings buried at Black Creek Crossroads and Hazel Valley.
It’s worth noting that Charles Mullins may not have actually been the first person buried at Smithers Cemetery. Information published by historian Timothy West in his transcription of the cemetery indicates that two children of William and Mary Bowling died in 1919 and were buried at the cemetery.
Additionally, there is the infant child of Bud and Zelphia Smithers who is buried at the cemetery, whose date of death isn’t known. Their youngest son, James, was born in 1908 — 11 years before the Bowling babies were buried at the cemetery. While it isn’t inconceivable that such a gap could have existed between the birth of James and the birth of another Smithers baby, it seems logical to conclude that Baby Smithers was the first person to be buried at Smithers Cemetery.
Following the death of Bud Smithers — who is the second person buried at Smithers Cemetery in terms of verifiable dates, but was probably the fifth person to actually be buried there, following the deaths of his infant child, two infant grandchildren, and Charles Mullins — the next burial at the cemetery was Isaac J. Davidson in August 1934.
Davidson was Bud Smithers’ son-in-law, having married Ella Smithers. They had a son, James Franklin Davidson, buried at the cemetery in 2011. His wife, Joyce Morgan, was later buried there in 2017. Another son, Isaac Jones Davidson Jr., was buried at the cemetery in 2014. He had an infant son, Michael J. Davidson, buried there in 1956.
The Moffitt family
The same year that Bud Smithers’ son-in-law, Isaac Davidson, was buried at the family cemetery by the railroad, infant Frankie Elizabeth Moffitt was buried there. She was born and died on Dec. 9, 1934, and is one of many people buried at Smithers Cemetery with a homemade headstone.
Frankie Elizabeth was the daughter of William Archie Moffitt and Gladys Ruby Thomas. She has two siblings buried at the cemetery, including sister Bobbie Lorine Wilson, who died in 2013, and her husband, Fred, in 2001; and sister Barbara Joann Moffitt, who died in 2020.
William Archie was the son of William M. Moffitt Jr. and Annie Smithers, and a grandson of Bud Smithers, making baby Frankie a great-granddaughter of Bud Smithers.
William and Annie Smithers Moffitt had a number of children, including James Eveart, Zilphia, Bessie, Pearl and Ralph. All of them were eventually buried at the Smithers Cemetery: James in 1957 (his wife, Arie Gross, was not buried there, but they had an 8-month-old daughter, Sarah Lou, buried there in 1942 and a month-old daughter, Janice Louise, buried there in 1945); William Archie in 2001 and his wife Gladys in 1965; Zilphia in 1935 when she died of a chronic bowel condition at the age of just 22; Bessie in 1996 and her husband Glen Laymance in 1968 (and their infant son, Phillip, in 1943 and two-year-old son, Samuel, in 1948, along with daughter Anna Mae Muse in 2012); Pearl in 1976 and her husband, Oscar Phipps, in 1978; and Ralph in 1981 and his wife Gwendolyn Dyer in 2013 (and their son, Ronnie James, in 2024).
Like Bud Smithers, William M. Moffitt was a veteran of the Spanish-American War. He was buried in the Smithers Cemetery in 1947 and has a military headstone that is nearly identical to his father-in-law’s. He was the son of Millard Moffitt and Melinda Smithers.
William Archie and Gladys Moffitt, the parents of baby Frankie Elizabeth, have one of the more unique headstones in all of Scott County’s cemeteries. It is a large, homemade concrete stone with hundreds of color-coordinated glass marbles embedded in the concrete.
Meanwhile, James and Arie Gross Moffitt had a son, Kelly Nathaniel Moffitt, who was buried at Smithers Cemetery in 1997. He married Altie Bowling, and she was buried at the cemetery in 2001. Their daughter, Sharon Kay Moffitt, was buried at the cemetery in 2013, and their son, Eveart, was buried there, as well. Another of James And Arie’s daughters, Mary Sue Moffitt, was buried at the cemetery in February 2024, along with her husband, Talmon Sexton, in 2011, and their son, Talmon Dwayne Sexton, in 1968 after he died of leukemia at the age of six. A grandson, Trevor D. Sexton, was buried at the cemetery in 2019 when he died at age 15.
Also buried at the cemetery in October 1861 was infant William Everett Moffitt, the son of William Moffitt and Irene Patterson.
The most recent burial at the cemetery, as of this writing, was Ronnie James Moffitt, who died Aug. 28, 2024 at the age of 64.
The Bowling family
Another of Bud and Zelphia Smithers’ daughters, Mary Elizabeth, better known as Lizzie, married William Thomas Bowling. She died in 1935 and was buried at the cemetery. He died in 1941 and was buried beside her.
Lizzie and William had two babies buried at the cemetery. They have identical homemade stones, which read “Baby Bowling,” with no dates of birth and death. Information published by Timothy West indicates that these are the graves of Velma Christine Bowling and John Henry Bowling, who both died in 1919.
Surviving children included Nola Jane, who married William E. Sexton and settled in West Robbins, and Welthia Marie, who married James Theodore Hicks. Welthia and James, or “Ted,” are both buried at the Smithers Cemetery. He died in 1993 and she died in 2004. Their seven-year-old son, Charles William, was buried at the cemetery in 1944, after a drowning accident in Campbell County.
Cemetery Census
SMITHERS CEMETERY
GPS Coordinates: 36.35776, -84.59025
First Burial: 1919
Last Burial: 2024
John H. Bowling, 1919-1919
Mary E. Bowling, 1893-1935
Velma C. Bowling, 1919-1919
William T. Bowling, 1894-1941
Ella Smithers Davidson, 1897-1972
I.J. Davidson, 1934-2014
Isaac J. Davidson, 1870-1934
James F. Davidson, 1931-2011
Joyce Morgan Davidson, 1937-2017
Lucian Davidson, 1917-1977
Michael J. Davidson, 1956-1956
Baby Doe, N/A-N/A
Dewey H. Freeze, 1938-1939
Amie D. Gooch, 1976-1976
Baby Hicks, 1981-1981
Charles W. Hicks, 1936-1944
James Hicks, 1911-1993
Welthia Bowling Hicks, 1917-2004
Bessie Moffitt Laymance, 1916-1996
Glen O. Laymance, 1917-1988
Phillip R. Laymance, 1943-1943
Samuel L. Laymance, 1946-1948
Clee Lowery, 1915-1975
Keith A. Macri, 1973-2012
Kaleb L.Miller, 1994-1994
Altie Bowling Moffitt, 1941-2001
Anna Smithers Moffitt, 1891-1950
Baby Moffitt, N/A-N/A
Eveart M. Moffitt, 1963-2013
Frankie E. Moffitt, 1934-1934
Gladys Thomas Moffitt, 1912-1965
Gwendolyn Dyer Moffitt, 1940-2013
James E. Moffitt, 1908-1957
Janice L. Moffitt, 1945-1945
Kelly N. Moffitt, 1938-1997
Ralph Moffitt, 1931-1981
Ronnie James Moffitt, 1960-2024
Sarah L. Moffitt, 1941-1942
Sharon K. Moffitt, 1958-2013
William A. Moffitt, 1910-2001
William E. Moffitt, 1961-1961
William M. Moffitt Jr., 1879-1947
Zilphia M. Moffitt, 1913-1935
Charles E. Mullins, 1908-1924
Anna M. Muse, 1940-2012
Oscar T. Phipps, 1913-1978
Pearl Moffitt Phipps, 1918-1976
Mary Moffitt Sexton, 1941-2024
Talmon Sexton, 1941-2011
Talmon D. Sexton, 1962-1968
Trevor D. Sexton, 2003-2019
Archie R. Smithers, 1903-1945
Baby Smithers, N/A-N/A
James Smithers, 1868-1933
Zelphia West Smithers, 1871-1952
Brandan M. Velardo, 1996-2017
Clara Jeffers West, 1916-2010
Harold D. West, 1948-2009
Onvey K. West, 1915-1995
Bobbie Moffitt Wilson, 1937-2013
Frederick W. Wilson, 1930-1991
This story is part of the Scott County Cemetery Project.