Scott County, Tennessee
Kilbeck Cemetery at Black Creek

This cemetery was inventoried and transcribed by Timothy N. West and Sue Posey on 1 Jun 2014.

The cemetery was actually inventoried and photographed over a 2 year period. The first half of the cemetery was inventoried on 3 Jun 2013 and then completed on 1 Jun 2014.

In some ways, Black Creek Crossroads and Kilbeck are almost sister cemeteries. They were the two primary burial grounds for residents of the Black Creek community and surrounding communities in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Most of the early families represented at Black Creek Crossroads – like the Smithers and the Lackeys – are also represented at Kilbeck.

Located on a small ridge that juts out over Black Creek itself, Kilbeck was long known as Black Creek Cemetery. In fact, it’s still referred to on property records as Black Creek Cemetery. But these days it’s more commonly known as Kilbeck Cemetery. It is located on Kilenbeck Road, the narrow and steep road that connects Mountain View to Black Creek, but the cemetery itself is spelled Kilbeck.

The cemetery originated in 1870 and remains active today. It has grown to include more than 350 graves. Most of the earliest graves are marked only by field stones. Some of them are difficult to read, have faded to the point of being illegible, or were never inscribed to begin with. Others contain only the initials of the person buried there, making it difficult to determine who is buried there.

The cemetery begins

The first person known to be buried at Kilbeck was one of those unknowns. The stone appears to be marked with the initials “L. S.” or “E. S.” The first initial is difficult to make out. In his 1994 book, Cemeteries of Scott County, historian Robert Bailey recorded it as an “E.” In his transcription, Tim West recorded it as an “L.” Either way, the second initial, a backwards “S,” is easier to make out, as is the single date carved on the stone: Jan. 29, 1870.

The fieldstone is roughly shaped like a heart and is located in the lower part of the cemetery, which is where the earliest graves were located.

On the FindAGrave website, which is known to be prone to errors, someone has recorded an entry identifying the grave as “?es Robinson.” However, no documentation is offered to verify that the grave belongs to a Robinson. A similarly shaped fieldstone next to the “L. S.” stone is also identified on FindAGrave as belonging to a Robinson.

There were Robinsons who lived in Scott County in 1870, according to that year’s census, but none in the Black Creek community.

There’s also a Robinson who was buried at Kilbeck: George G. Robinson. His stone identifies him as serving in Company B of the 2nd Tennessee Infantry, but no dates are provided.

There’s some mystery surrounding that grave, as well. It would seem to indicate that George Robinson served in the Civil War. The 2nd Tennessee Infantry was a Union regiment that trained at Camp Dick Robinson in Kentucky and was attached to the Army of the Ohio. Its soldiers saw quite a bit of action in East Tennessee during the war and were part of Gen. Ambrose Burnside’s army when he marched through Scott County in 1863.

However, Paul Roy did not list George Robinson in his 2001 book, Scott County in the Civil War, and the 1860 census did not list a George Robinson in Scott County near the outbreak of the war.

There was, however, a George G. Robinson – age 14 – living in Fentress County in 1860. He was the son of Enoch and Elisabeth Robinson.

By the 1920 census, George Robinson and his wife, Mary Reagan, were living in Scott County, along with several of their adult children. By the 1930 census, Mary was widowed and living in Alabama.

These records lend themselves to the idea that this is Kilbeck’s George G. Robinson, and that he died at some point between 1920 and 1930. (In 1922, Mary Robinson filed a Civil War pension petition, listing herself as the widow of George G. Robinson who served in Company B of the 2nd Tennessee Infantry, which firms up this conclusion.)

It’s intriguing that both of George Robinson’s parents had the initial “E.” There is no record of where either of them are buried. However, his mother died in 1865, and his father died in 1870. At the time of the 1870 census, George Robinson continued to live with his father in Fentress County. Therefore, it seems extremely unlikely that the mysterious first grave at Kilbeck would belong to either of them.

By the 1880 census, George had married Mary and they lived in Fentress County with five children, ranging in ages from seven years to one month.

The family showed up in Pickett County in 1880, back in Fentress County in 1900, and in Scott County for the first time in 1910, living on Robins Road with three of their adult children, Emma, Clemens, and Silas.

That brings us no closer to solving the question of whether the unidentified first grave at Kilbeck was related to George Robinson who would be buried there later. One intriguing note from census records: Silas Robinson’s middle name was Edward (if inverted, his initials would have been “E. S.”) and he was not listed with the family after the move to Alabama in 1930. However, it appears that he had moved further west and was eventually buried in a cemetery near Memphis, Tenn.

Further complicating things: the neighboring stone to the heart-shaped field stone inscribed “L. S.” (or “E. S.”) is a similarly-shaped fieldstone that is inscribed in much the same way, including with a backwards “S.” On the FindAGrave website, someone has identified this grave as also belonging to an unknown Robinson. The close proximity of the graves, the shape of the stones, and the style of the inscriptions would strongly suggest that they’re closely related, but their identities remain a mystery.

The second stone is very difficult to read. The initial “S” is easy to make out, but it isn’t possible to make out another initial. Likewise, there appears to be a birthdate of “27, 1870,” but the month isn’t legible. The first three numbers of the death year appear to be “189.” The date appears to be Jan. 19. This is also how Bailey recorded it in his 1994 book.

On the FindAGrave website, someone else has recorded that grave as being an “S. Bowling,” but again there is no documentation offered. There was a Bowling family living in Black Creek at the time – Sampson Bowling and his wife Eva Smithers – and a couple of their children are buried at Kilbeck. In fact, there are many Bowlings buried at the cemetery there. However, there is no indication that the side-by-side unidentified graves are related to them. In fact, they would have been children themselves in 1870, and their first child doesn’t appear to have been born until 1884.

So, for now, it seems the first known burial at Kilbeck was a person with the initials “E. S.” or “L. S.” who died in 1870, and that someone closely related to them with an initial “S” died at some point in the 1890s.

Families who lived at Black Creek with last names beginning with “S” included the Sanders, Sextons, Smiths, Smithers, and Summers. Until someone can shed light on the identities of these early graves marked with simple fieldstones, however, it seems they’ll remain a mystery.

The earliest identifiable grave

Joel Buttram shows up on an online inventory of graves at Kilbeck, with the birth and death years of 1837-1870. However, there is no headstone at the cemetery with his name, and his grave was not recorded there by either Bailey in 1994 or West in 2014.

A Joel Buttram (1838-1875) is also buried at the Hurtt Cemetery at New River. It has been suggested that these are the same Joel Buttram, and that the stone at Hurtt Cemetery is actually a cenotaph, while Buttram was actually buried at Kilbeck.

The Buttram for whom a stone can be found at Hurtt Cemetery was originally from New River, the son of Bailey and Lucinda McCoy Buttram. He was a Civil War veteran who earned the rank of corporal and was captured at Rogersville in 1863, along with many other Scott Countians.

Interestingly, though, he married Arbana Ellis after the war, in 1866, and she was from the Black Creek area – the daughter of Edward Ellis Sr. and Jane Griffith. And when Arbana died in 1929, she was buried at Kilbeck Cemetery. (She married James Willoughby after Buttram’s death.) Additionally, two of the three children Joel Buttram had with Arbana before his death – Savannah Smithers and Pharoah Buttram – were buried at Kilbeck. This lends itself to the idea that Joel Buttram was actually buried at Kilbeck, though it isn’t clear why his cenotaph would have been placed at Hurtt Cemetery. While several members of the Buttram family were buried there, none of his immediate family were buried there. (For the record, the Sacred Ground series will leave Joel Buttram’s grave at Hurtt Cemetery, where it has traditionally been recorded.)

There are two other Buttrams buried at Kilbeck who died as children – Balie Buttram in 1897 and Lizzie Buttram in 1901 – and it seems possible that both were the children of Pharaoh Buttram, which would have made them Joel Buttram’s grandchildren.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth Hicks Lackey (1810-1877), the wife of James Lackey (1786-1875) is reported to be buried at Kilbeck. However, she does not have an identifiable headstone at the cemetery, and her grave was not recorded by either Bailey or West. One of James Lackey’s sons by another wife, Joel Lackey (1830-1919) was buried at Kilbeck.

Finally, we come to the first grave at Kilbeck that can conclusively be identified, and that is the grave of W. H. Lackey (1864-1879).

The Lackey family

It is perhaps surprising that only 11 of the identifiable graves at Kilbeck Cemetery are members of the Lackey family, given the prominence of this family in the Black Creek community in the late 19th century.

William H. Lackey was 14 years old when he died on March 5, 1879. He had been born on Dec. 4, 1869, the son of Joel Lackey and Jane Smithers. The family lived in Wayne County, Ky. when he was born, but moved to Black Creek later in his youth.

Joel Lackey, as mentioned above, was the son of James Lackey. James Lackey lived at Black Creek for several years.

The FindAGrave website lists James Lackey as buried in a cemetery in Lenoir City in 1875. However, this is a mix-up with a separate James Lackey. Black Creek’s James Lackey was still living in 1880, age 94, and resided in Black Creek with his second wife, Betsey. In his book, Bailey includes a listing for James Lackey at Kilbeck, 1800-1880. A stone cannot currently be located.

Joel Lackey married Jane Smithers (1844-1917), the daughter of William Smithers and Eva Sanders. (Her parents spelled their last name “Smither.”) Both of her parents are buried at Kilbeck.

By the 1870 census, Joel and Jane had three children: W. H. was about five years old. Nancy and Alexander were younger.

Ten years later, in 1880, the family was living at Black Creek. W. H. had died, and the Lackeys had six children living at home: 14-year-old Nancy, 12-year-old Alexander, six-year-old Louisa, five-year-old Riley, two-year-old Selma, and baby Ellen.

Nancy was just 29 when she died in 1895 and was buried at Kilbeck. Ellen was only nine when she died in 1889 and was buried at Kilbeck.

The rest of the Lackey children lived full lives. Alexander married Parzida Phillips, and they’re buried at Black Creek Crossroads. Louisa married Eli Sanders and, following his death, James Daniel Blevins. She and her first husband are buried at Kilbeck, as are two of their children who died in childhood. Riley married several times, last to Amy Keeton, and is buried at Black Creek Crossroads. His first wife, Huldae, and second wife, Halie Ward, are buried at Kilbeck. Selma married William Massengale and they’re buried at Kilbeck, along with a son who died in childhood, Onvy Massengale.

Other Lackeys buried at Kilbeck include infant Walter, who was the son of Mitchell and Araba Ellis Lackey, and Flora Mae, who was the 21-year-old daughter of Mitchell and Araba.

There’s another stone at the cemetery that simply has the year “1859” inscribed on it that may be a member of the Lackey family, as well. James Lackey had a 12-year-old daughter, Nancy, listed in the 1850 census who was not listed in the 1860 census. There is no evidence to confirm that the unknown “1859” grave at Kilbeck is hers, but it is located among a group of Lackey graves. Hannah Stevenson Lackey, James Lackey’s first wife, was still living in 1860, but apparently died shortly thereafter. It’s very likely that she’s buried at Kilbeck in an unidentified grave – as is also presumed to be the case with James Lackey’s second wife, Betsey.

The Smithers family

Both William and Eva Smithers (spelled Smither on their stones), the parents of Jane Smithers Lackey, died in 1881 and were buried at Kilbeck.

A Jesse Smithers was later buried at Kilbeck. His military stone does not include dates of birth or death, but an online family tree lists them as 1818-1883.

However, in his book, Roy lists Smithers as being 34 years old when he enlisted in the Confederate army in 1863. That would place his date of birth around 1829. Jesse Smithers was also listed in an 1890 Civil War veterans census as living in Winfield.

Among the Smithers family living at Black Creek were also Jacob Smithers (1829-1897) and his wife, Catherine Laxton (1830-1908). They’re both buried at Kilbeck. Their son, William Wilshire Smithers, married Sally West. Their daughter, Nancy, married James Sanders and, after his death, married John Jeffers. All of these but John Jeffers are buried at Kilbeck.

It would be easy to assume that William, Jesse, and Jacob Smithers were brothers. However, there doesn’t seem to be conclusive family trees to prove that. Various online ancestry charts appear to be rife with errors.

In addition to Jane Lackey, other children of William and Eva Smithers included Nancy, Reuben, Ephram and Polly.

William Wilshire and Sally Smithers had a large family, with their children including Jefferson, Millard, John, Elizabeth, Katy, Sarrah, Phene and Pharo.

The cemetery grows

The 1880s and 1890s were a time of significant growth for the Black Creek Cemetery, as it was then known. There were at least 28 people buried there between 1880 and 1898, and perhaps more.

Many of those early graves were children: Six-year-old Josephine Smith in 1888, nine-year-old Ellen Lackey in 1889, an infant identified as “T. L.” in 1889, one-year-old Willie McDonough in 1893, 11-month-old Mary McDonough in 1894, an infant Bowling in 1896, 13-year-old James Bowling in 1897, one-year-old Balie Buttram in 1897, and the list goes on.

The years of 1893 and 1894 must have been especially difficult for the McDonough family who lived at Black Creek.

On Nov. 8, 1893, Willie McDonough died. He was the 19-month-old son of Michael and Lydia McDonough, who were expecting another child at any time.

Just three weeks after Willie’s death, Mary McDonough was born. Almost exactly two months later, on Jan. 17, 1894, her father died. Then, on Nov. 16, 1894, less than two weeks before her first birthday, Mary died.

The McDonoughs had several other children, including Peter, James, John, and Harvey. Following Michael’s death, Lydia remarried to Milton Walker, and they moved to Morgan County. She died around 1907.

The Lawson family

Eva Smithers Lawson was buried at Kilbeck in 1893. She was the daughter of Reuben Smithers and Anna Lawson, and married Sampson Lawson in July 1883. He later remarried to Louverna Ellis.

Reuben Smithers was the son of William and Eva Smithers, a brother to Jane Lackey.

Eva Lawson was one of five children, including Mary, William, Nancy, and Bud.

Eva’s brother, William, was also buried at Kilbeck in 1917, as was his wife, Leann, and one of their daughters, Ida Mae.

Eva’s son, William, was buried at Kilbeck in 1963, as was his first wife, Sadie Draughn, who died in 1924.

The Bowling family

There are more than four dozen members of the Bowling family buried at Kilbeck Cemetery; it is the most prominent family represented there.

The first to be buried there was the infant child of Sampson Bowling in 1896.

Sampson Bowling was the son of Isham Bowling (1835-1865). He married Eva Smithers and they had four children (James, Tommie, Sherman, and an infant who died at birth) before Eva died in 1898. Following her death, Sampson remarried to Louvernia Ellis, the daughter of William Riley Ellis and Nancy Phillips, and they had two more children.

Sampson, Eva and Louvernia are apparently all buried at Kilbeck. Interestingly, Sampson and Louvernia have stones at both Kilbeck and Black Creek Crossroads. But their death certificates indicate that they were buried at Black Creek, which is what Kilbeck was known as in those days.

Also buried at Kilbeck are several more of Sampson’s children, including 13-year-old James, who died in 1897; Tommie (1887-1939); Sherman (1890-1954) and his wife Ida Bell Daugherty; John Lindsay (1899-1986) and his wife Earnie Smith; Robert (1901-1958) and his wife Trannie Smith; Fannie Branim (1907-1996) and her husband John Riley; Enmon (1915-1969) and his wife Artie; and Alice Branim (1919-1973) and her husband Claude.

Sherman and Ida Bell had an infant son buried at the cemetery in 1914. Another of their sons, Everett, was buried there in 1992.

The Smith family also lived at Black Creek. Fountain Smith (1878-1952) married Arbana Phillips (1881-1980). They had three daughters, and all of them married into the Bowling family.

Emma married Jesse Bowling, and died in 1928, when she was just 26. Earnie married John Lindsay Bowling. Trannie married Robert Bowling. Jesse, John Lindsay, and Robert were all brothers, the sons of Sampson Bowling.

Interestingly, while the Bowling boys were marrying Smith girls, the Bowling girls were marrying Branim boys.

Perry Huston Branim (1879-1966) and Lucinda Clemantine Gentry (1881-1948), lived near Black Creek. They had a large family, consisting of at least a dozen children.

One of the Branim boys, John Riley, married Fannie Bowling. His brother, Claude Elmer, married Fannie’s sister, Alice.

The Branim roots run deep at nearby Black Creek Crossroads, where Perry and Cindy are both married, along with many of their children and grandchildren.

But the Branims who married into the Bowling family were laid to rest at Kilbeck. Most of their children are buried there, too – including Claude’s children Claude Jr. (1946-2009) and Clara (1949-2013), and John Riley’s children Benjamin Roy (1929-1987), and infants Floyd (1930), Ella (1932) and Vernon (1935). An exception is Claude’s daughter, Kaye Culver, who is buried at Crossroads.

Other of Perry and Cindy’s children buried at Kilbeck include Joe (1902-1967) and his wife Julia Smithers, and Lillie Smithers (1909-1976) and her husband Leslie. A daughter-in-law, Clio Carver (wife of James Roy) was buried at the cemetery in 1931 after being murdered and her body discovered in New River.

The cemetery today

Kilbeck Cemetery remains active, with one or two burials occurring there every year. The last person to be buried there, as of this writing, was Sheila Guffey Stringfield, who died in February at the age of 71. She was the wife of Sam Stringfield, whose parents – Robert Stringfield and Emma Willoughby Stringfield – are buried at Kilbeck. Robert and Emma also had a 13-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, buried at the cemetery in 1955.

Prior to that, Naomi Smithers Ellis was buried at the cemetery in 2023, and Wanda Summers Sexton was buried there in 2022. Naomi’s husband, Gene Ellis, was buried at Kilbeck in 1984. Wanda’s husband, Hulen, was buried there in 2000. (Source: The Independent Herald, 4 Apr 2024, p16-22)