Scott County, Tennessee
Coal Hill Cemetery at Glenmary

This cemetery was inventoried and transcribed by Timothy N. West and Sue Posey on 5 Jun 2016.

From the intersection of Coal Hill Road and Highway 27 in Glenmary, turn east on to Coal Hill Road and travel about 1.0 miles to the cemetery on the left, next to the road. The cemetery is adjacent to the Archie Lewallen Cemetery.

GLENMARY – Today, the old town of Glenmary and the adjacent mining community of Coal Hill are largely memories. Gone are the days when this southern Scott County town could boast as being one of the largest settlements in the entire county, and a hub of industry, thanks to the railroad and the rich deposits of coal just beneath the surface.

There are still a number of people who live in these communities, and that number is increasing. But the quiet and peaceful nature of Coal Hill today belies the rich history and tradition that this area espouses.

There are a number of artifacts scattered about that help tell the story of Coal Hill’s history – the foremost of which are probably the brick-lined ovens that were used by the Glenmary Coal & Coke Co. Another is the community’s grave yard – the Coal Hill Cemetery.

Dating back to about 1880, Coal Hill Cemetery contains the graves of several of the early immigrants to southern Scott County who helped provide labor for the burgeoning coal industry here. It sits directly adjacent to the Archie Lewallen Cemetery. To the eye, they’re essentially one cemetery. For legal purposes, they’re two separate cemeteries, and the Sacred Ground series will profile the Lewallen Cemetery next week.

Coal Hill Cemetery, the largest of the two adjoining cemeteries, has grown to include over 200 graves. It is well-maintained and remains active even today. It is located just a little more than a mile off U.S. Highway 27. There are several sections of the cemetery that are partitioned off by wrought iron fence and contain the graves of some of the community’s early families. It is these small partitions in particular that help tell a fascinating story of days gone by.

An interesting footnote: In its early days, Coal Hill Cemetery was called the “White Cemetery.” There were two other cemeteries at Coal Hill that were called “Colored Cemetery.” There were a number of black workers employed in the mining and coke operations at Glenmary. They were not buried in the same cemetery.

The Heaps Family

A sign at the Coal Hill Cemetery states that the cemetery was established in 1883. The first burial there may have actually taken place three years earlier, in 1880.

That’s the year that Elizabeth Heaps is believed to have died. Her family is one of those with its own section of the cemetery, enclosed in wrought iron fencing.

Born Elizabeth Bone in 1830, Elizabeth Heaps was a native of England, and the wife of John Heaps (1815-1888). Her husband, who was also born in England, was the man who opened the first coal mine at Coal Hill in 1878, along with Jabe Crook. (By 1884, according to the late Maggie Barger, Crook had sold his interest in the company to a group of businessmen from Lexington, Ky. and the Glenmary Coal & Coke Co. was organized.)

It’s not clear exactly when John and Elizabeth Heaps moved to Glenmary, though it would’ve probably been in the 1870s. An 1860 census found the Heaps family living in Pennsylvania. By 1870, they had moved to Clinton County, Ky., near Byrdstown, Tenn. Interestingly, the Heaps family was still showing in Clinton County when the 1880 census was taken, though John Heaps had supposedly opened the mine at Coal Hill by that time. Also interesting: an obituary for one of the Heaps children – daughter Lettice, who spent much of her adult life in Roane County, Tenn. – states that she was born in England, in 1861.

While John Heaps had a headstone placed at his Coal Hill Cemetery grave when he died in 1888, Elizabeth Heaps did not. She had a commercial flat stone that was placed later. Because that stone is inscribed with only her name, and not her dates of birth or death, we don’t know exactly when she died. The public record does not include a death certificate to shed any additional light on the matter.

The wrought iron fence enclosing the Heaps family’s graves, complete with the family’s name plate on the gate, is identical to that of the Neathery family nearby, and would suggest that both families were relatively well-off.

Also buried within the Heaps partition are Josephine “Josie” Heaps and Martin “Dock” Heaps. Dock Heaps was one of the children of John and Elizabeth Heaps. It is not known when he died. Josie Heaps was his wife. They were married in 1881. She died in 1922, at the age of 65.

Like Elizabeth Heaps, both Dock and Josie have flat commercial stones that were placed after their deaths.

There were several other Heaps children, as well. Most of them were buried in Kentucky. However, Sarah Ann Heaps (1868-1960) is buried at Coal Hill Cemetery. She married James Toomey (1864-1921), and several members of their family are buried at Coal Hill.

The Neathery Family

Just a few dozen feet from the Heaps partition at Coal Hill Cemetery is the identical Neatherly partition.

Murtle Neathery is believed to have been the second person buried at Coal Hill, in February 1883. She was just 10 months old at the time and was the daughter of James Alvis Neatherly (1854-1917) and Leann Burchett (1855-1894). Both of her parents are also buried at Coal Hill.

While Coal Hill’s Neathery family were not immigrants from England, they were involved in the early mining operations at Coal Hill. Records suggest that they followed the Heaps family from Kentucky. They were also from Clinton County, which is where James Alvis’s parents, Clinton Neatherly and Betsy Allen, were buried.

Like the Heaps family, the Neathery family was not listed as living in Scott County when the 1880 census was taken. James Alvis and Leann were listed in Monticello, Ky., along with their two children, Eddy and Charles.

These census records suggest that both of these early families moved to Glenmary shortly after 1880 – sometime between when census enumerators made their rounds in 1880 and when baby Murtle Neathery died in 1883. It would not be surprising to learn that the first mine at Coal Hill did indeed begin production in 1878, and that John Heaps returned to Kentucky for his wife and children sometime thereafter.

James and Leann Neathery had at least five children besides Eddie, Charlie and Murtle. The rest were born after the family moved to Glenmary: Sallie Kendrick in 1882, George Martin in 1884, John Ridley in 1886, Roy Alvis in 1890 and Ann Nettie in 1892.

In addition to Murtle, Willie and Charlie were both buried at Coal Hill Cemetery. Charlie was the first to die, in 1914. Willie died in 1929 by poisoning himself. (He does not have a headstone but is believed to have been buried at Coal Hill.) Charlie also had two children buried at Coal Hill. One was a newborn buried there in 1905. The other stone contains no dates.

Besides Murtle, two of the Neathery children died young. Roy Alvis died just 20 days after his first birthday in 1891. Ann Nettie was three years old when she died the day after Christmas in 1895. Both were buried at Coal Hill.

Following Leann’s death in 1894, James Alvis Neathery remarried to Tressie Myers. She was buried at Coal Hill when she died in 1917, two months after James’ death. She had two children from an earlier marriage, Roscoe McCann and Floyd McCann, who were buried at Coal Hill in 1907 and 1919.

The Early Burials

Another early burial at Coal Hill occurred in May 1883, when 20-year-old Crist Durr was buried there. At least, that’s how the historian Robert Bailey inventoried the grave when he transcribed the cemetery in 1994. More recently, Tim West transcribed it as Crist Dupp but acknowledged that it could be Durp. Indeed, the headstone is hard to read.

The stone indicates that Crist Durr (or Dupp) was born in Chapon, Penn., which might have been a misspelling of Champion, Penn. No additional information is available, and he appears to have no family members buried at Coal Hill, suggesting he was one of those who moved to the community to work in the mining industry.

A three-week-old baby, Minnie Toomey, was buried at the cemetery in 1888. This was likely the child of James and Sarah Ann Toomey, and a grandchild of John and Elizabeth Heaps, but the inscription on the stone is worn and impossible to read.

The Toomey Family

James and Sarah Ann lost several children at young ages. While it isn’t clear that Minnie Toomey was their baby, they had a one-year-old daughter, Eva, buried at the cemetery in 1895, and a 13-year-old son, John J. Toomey, buried at the cemetery in 1903.

Several other members of the Toomey family are also buried at the cemetery, beginning with 29-year-old Dennis Toomey in 1896.

A Toomey family showed up in the 1880 census as living in Morgan County, Tenn. There was John Toomey, his wife Margaret, and their five children, ranging from ages 22 to 12, most of whom weren’t named.

Margaret Toomey (1827-1907) is buried at Coal Hill Cemetery, and her headstone indicates that she was born in Ireland.

There is some confusion because a separate Margaret Toomey – also married to a John Toomey, also born in Ireland, and also born in 1827 – is buried at Potter Cemetery in Huntsville. However, the Margaret Toomey buried in Huntsville died in 1918. The Margaret Toomey buried at Coal Hill died in 1907.

It seems obvious that the James Toomey and Dennis Toomey buried at Coal Hill are brothers, and that the Margaret Toomey buried there was their mother. How that ties into the very similar Margaret Toomey purported to be buried at Potter Cemetery in Huntsville isn’t yet clear.

Also buried at Coal Hill is Charley Toomey, who was another of the children of James and Sarah Ann Toomey and died in 1922 at the age of 35.

There was also a William Toomey, born in 1900, who married Sarah Welch. They had an infant son buried at the cemetery in 1924. Their daughter, Georgia Helen Toomey Piercy, was buried at the cemetery in 2015.

The Milsom and Davison families

Another family that moved to Coal Hill for work was the Milson family.

Henry James Milson (1859-1900) was originally from Pennsylvania, the son of an immigrant from Wales, John Milsom, who died during the Civil War from a disease he contracted while held as a prisoner in a Rebel camp.

Henry James Milson’s connection to Coal Hill was through John Heaps – the man who opened the first mine there. Henry James married Jane Ann “Jennie” Davison, who was the daughter of John Davison and Jane Heaps.

Jane Heaps was a sister to John Heaps, making Jennie Davison the niece of John Heaps. Jane Heaps never lived in Glenmary. Both she and her husband, John Davison, died in England. However, several of their children migrated to the U.S. and eventually wound up at Glenmary. They’re buried at Coal Hill Cemetery: Thomas Davison (spelled Davidson) and his wife, Janey Dixon, are buried there, along with their daughter, Rebecca Davidson Yahnig; Rebecca Davison Birch is buried there (like her niece, Rebecca Davidson Yahnig, she died young, and both of their husbands were buried elsewhere); and Jesse Davison (spelled Davidson) is buried at Coal Hill, along with his wife, Emma Evans, and two of their children who died young: seven-year-old Johnnie Davidson and four-month-old Thomas Davidson.

Henry and Jennie Milson had a one-year-old son, Johnny, who was buried at Coal Hill in 1886.

Jennie and her siblings also had a half-brother, Martin Tomlison, who was buried at Coal Hill in 1895.

Jennie Milsom was buried at the cemetery in 1893, and Henry James was buried there in 1900.

The cemetery today

The Coal Hill Cemetery remains active, with a couple of new burials occurring there each year, on average. The most recent burials were Oscar Taubert and Roberta “Lynn” Huckeby in 2023.

Oscar Taubert was an HVAC installer from Robbins.

Other recent burials at the cemetery have included Lucille Huckeby in 2022, Ledford Henry and Bryan Fairchild in 2021, and Ronald Nagy in 2020.

Also born at Coal Hill in 2016 was Sammy E. “Sam” Wright, who died in 2016 at the age of 74. He lived nearby the cemetery and was a long-time educator and member of the Scott County Board of Education. He was also a one-time county commissioner in Scott County’s 2nd District. His wife, Sandra Faye Griffith, was buried at the cemetery in 2018. His mother, Geneva Young, was buried at Coal Hill in 1945. His grandparents, Samuel Epps Young and Nancy Stringfield, are also buried there. Sam Wright was descended from two of Scott County’s Revolutionary War veterans: Abel Peak, who settled in the Glenmary area, and Joseph Griffith. Peak’s son, Lewis, married Griffith’s granddaughter, Matilda, and they lived in the Glenmary area. (Source: The Independent Herald, 15 Aug 2024, p16-22)