Scott County, Tennessee
Chimney Rock Cemetery at BSFNRRA

This cemetery was inventoried and transcribed by Timothy N. West and Sue Posey on 27 May 2012.

As of 5 May 2016, the cemetery sexton is Nora Newport, (423)569-8973.

From the intersection of 3rd Avenue and Highway 27 in Oneida, travel West on 3rd Avenue (Highway 297) for about 5.3 miles. Continue straight onto Station Camp Road. Travel about 7.2 miles to Chimney Rocks. The cemetery is on your left near the Chimney Rocks.

W. H. Blevins Writes Letter To The News - This Article Tells the Story of The Orphan Girl - In the year 1875 there was a certain widow woman who lived on the John Hall farm about 3 miles north of Huntsville. She had an orphan girl adopted to her. After years of cruel treatment to this child, it was found dead about 12 miles from her home on what was known as the Huntsville and Monticello road. There was a family who lived at what is known as the George Smith place saw this woman pass their home going in the direction where this child was found. She was riding a horse with the child covered up with a white blanket behind her. They could hear its pitiful cries. This child was found by a man by the name of Grundy Elliott. It had no shoes on its feet, nothing on its head, and only a thin calico dress. There were many bruises and signs of violence on its little body. It was carried from there to the Chimney Rock where it was buried, and this started the Chimney Rock graveyard. A short time after this Stewart Slaven killed his brother-in-law, Dan Pennington. These 2 started the Chimney Rock graveyard where there is now more than seventy-five buried. At that time Rev. C. C. Terry kept a post office at Parch Corn Creek. Rufus Chitwood, who was mail carrier form Huntsville to that post office claimed to have seen that child there sometime that morning and she was still alive. This woman was indicted for murder at the time of Huntsville and had a mistrial. The public was so strong against her that they never could make another jury in Scott county. The case was transferred to Jacksboro in Campbell County. This case was befelled from time to time until the lawyers got her home and all she had, and she never was tried but her case stands for trial before that great judge. There will be no lawyers there to plead for her. She will reap what she sowed. I have heard this story from my mother, uncle Cal, aunt Oma and aunt Jane Terry who knew all about this. I would give you this woman's name but she might have some people living that I might cramp their feelings. \s\ W. H. Blevins. (Source: Scott County News, 11 April 1952, p1&6)

Chimney Rocks Cemetery tells tales from long ago past

More than just resting places for the dead or monuments to those who came before us, cemeteries tell the stories of the history of a place. Decades — and even centuries — later, descendants and historians track down the graves of those who lived long ago, using tombstones to stitch together the stories of years past.

Within the 125,000 acres purchased by the U.S. Government in the 1970s and incorporated into the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area, there are more than four dozen known cemeteries — 58 in all. Some are simple burial places, family plots where fathers buried their children or their wives near the family homestead. Others are more elaborate, formal cemeteries where communities came together to bury their dead in a central location.

One of the latter is the Chimney Rock Cemetery at Station Camp. Also known as Slaven Cemetery, it is perhaps the most ill-kept of the largest cemeteries that fall within the Big South Fork’s boundaries. Yet, it is accessible by car; in fact, it’s only a stone’s throw from the main road.

Chimney Rock Cemetery is fascinating for the history that it tells of this area long before it was a national park, when it was still being settled by the forefathers of many of the people who live in West Oneida and Scott County today.

The history of the cemetery starts with its oldest grave — Angeline Moore, the 15-year-old orphan girl who was found beaten to death on Huckleberry Ridge on Jan. 6, 1872. Moore’s story is as interesting as it is tragic. She was apparently indentured to a Huntsville family and turned up dead, her body badly beaten, on the old Monticello Road, which snaked through the nearby Big South Fork River gorge and connected Huntsville to Monticello, Ky. Indictments were handed down by a grand jury, naming two women as being responsible for her death. However, they were never convicted.

While Moore was the first person to be buried at Chimney Rock Cemetery, others soon followed. Daniel Pennington was the second person to be buried at the cemetery when he was killed by his brother-in-law that same year, at the age of 26.

Pennington was married to Susanna Slaven, who was around five months pregnant with their first child. For reasons that weren’t recorded by history, Pennington wound up in a fight with his brother-in-law, Elias Meshack Slaven, Susanna’s brother.

Amid the fight, Slaven fired a gun at Pennington. Pennington returned fire, striking Pennington in the shoulder. Perhaps fearing retribution, he left his home and hid in the underbrush nearby. It wasn’t long before another of his wife’s brothers, Steward Riley Slaven, approached Pennington and shot him.

Susanna later testified in court that her husband had told her before he died that he saw Steward Slaven running away after the mortal shot was fired. Reports from the time indicated that Steward Slaven told others, as he packed up his belongings and fled the area, that there was no need for the law to go after Meshack because it was he who had killed Dan Pennington.

Both Meshack and Steward Slaven were indicted for Pennington’s death, but neither ever stood trial. Another man, Anderson Lewallen, did stand trial, but was acquitted.

Four months later, Dan Pennington’s son, William Marion Pennington, was born. William left the Big South Fork for Missouri and eventually wound up in California. Susanna left for Mt. Pisgah. Steward never returned and eventually died in California, while Meshack also left and later died in Missouri.

Chimney Rock Cemetery takes its name from the photogenic, free-standing sandstone buttes that tower over the road like sentries just north of the burial ground. It’s also known as Slaven Cemetery for its founder, Pa Slaven, who was buried there in 1887.

In all, there are 66 graves in the cemetery, most of them well over a century old. The original stones were quarried from sandstone a few hundred yards to the west, along Station Camp Road. Most of those original stones, if inscribed, have been rendered illegible by time. While commercial stones eventually began to appear on some of the graves, the originals of those are quickly weathering as well. Many of the early graves were simply marked with stones that were not inscribed.

While young Angeline Moore’s grave was the first to be located in the Chimney Rock Cemetery, the last was seven-month-old Shirley Fay Crabtree, who died 64 years later, in 1936.

The Crabtree story is perhaps the most tragic of all the stories told by the cemetery. Lottie Blevins — the daughter of Harvey and Poppy Litton Blevins, and the granddaughter of John and Elvira Litton, who settled the Litton Farm across the river near Bandy Creek — was 19 years old when she married Claude Crabtree in 1931. Five years later, in the late winter of February 1936, the couple had their first child: a daughter, Shirley Fay.

But just four days later, on Feb. 23, 1936, Lottie died, presumably from complications of childbirth. Claude Crabtree was left alone to raise their daughter. That September, baby Shirley fell sick and died. She was buried a few feet away from her mother in the Chimney Rock Cemetery.

In the span of just seven months, Crabtree had buried his wife and his only child. He remarried in 1939 and eventually moved to Texas. But he never had another child.

Angeline Moore and Shirley Fay Crabtree are just two of many children buried at Chimney Rock.

Among the other children buried there are three-month-old Victoria Blevins, the daughter of Newton and Mandy Blevins, who died in 1905. One year later, her sister, Sarah, was born. Sarah died in 1920 at the age of 14 and is buried nearby.

Newton and Mandy Blevins had several other children. Newt was later shot and killed as he and Mandy rounded up cattle on their property. No one was ever charged in his death. (Blevins had served a year in prison after shooting and killing 51-year-old William C. Hatfield in 1924. Hatfield’s father, William Riley Hatfield, had been shot and killed during an argument along the Big South Fork River in 1894, at the age of 70. W.C. Hatfield was the second husband of Poppy Blevins, the mother of Lottie Blevins and the grandmother of Shirley Fay Blevins.)

Other children buried at Chimney Rock include two-week-old Viscal Blevins, 10-month-old Lieuvada Miller, and three Burke babies.(Source: The Independent Herald, 7 Oct 2021, pB24&A9)

‘A mountain horror’

On Jan. 6, 1872, the badly beaten body of a 15-year-old Scott County girl, Angeline Moore, was discovered along a road on Huckleberry Ridge. Her tombstone calls her an “orphan girl,” but writings from the day indicate that her mother was very much alive and well, living in Kentucky. Some accounts of the teen girl say that she was indentured to a family in Huntsville.

The finding of the body was sensationalized by newspapers across the region. One called it “a mountain horror.” Another asked, “Murdered or starved, which? Sad fate of a beautiful girl.” The Knoxville Daily Chronicle described the discovery of the body like this: “The body bore evidences of brutality and inhumanity at the contemplation of which a demon might shudder. The affair has caused intense excitement. When found, the body was on a small path near the road. Her collar bone and one rib were broken. The left eye was mashed in, apparently by a severe blow, and the entire body, most horribly mutilated, bore witness to refined cruelty, which is at once sickening and a burning shame to advanced civilization.”

Angeline Moore was the first person buried at the Chimney Rock Cemetery in what is today the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area, near Station Camp.

These are some of the newspaper accounts.

A SCOTT COUNTY MYSTERY

A short time since, the body of Angeline Moore, a girl of sixteen years of age, was found in the mountains fourteen miles north of Huntsville, near the Huntsville and Monticello (Ky.) roads…The body was interred, but was soon taken up and Justice Terry summoned a jury and an inquest was held. This young lady around whose death a mystery clings that has created unparalleled excitement, about two years since was bound to, and has since, until recently, lived with Mrs. Eliziah (Keziah) Thompson, a widow lady near this place. Some weeks since, it is said, she was driven from Mrs. Thompson’s by harsh treatment, since which time she has been wandering through the mountains homeless, friendless, freezing and starving. Foul play was suspected and suspicion pointed to Mrs. Thompson, she was arrested and at a preliminary investigation she was bound over to the next term of the Circuit Court to answer the charge of “murder.” … A photograph of the girl, found on her person, was shown to your correspondent. The countenance shows evidence of intelligence, and we shudder to think the beautiful and innocent should share a fate so bad.

Knoxville Daily Chronicle

—

A CHARGE OF MURDER

The girl’s name was Angeline Moore, aged 16 years, Angeline had been bound to a woman named Keziah Thompson, who lives near Huntsville. When the body was discovered in a mountain detile, nearly fourteen miles beyond Huntsville, it presented a horrible appearance…

The grand jury found a true bill against Mrs. Thompson and her daughter, Sallie Thompson, for the murder of the girl, and on Tuesday last, the two women were arrested, and admitted to bail in the sum of $10,000 each.

The only motive that is given by the neighbors as the possible reason for the murder of Angeline Moore, by Mrs. Thompson and her daughters, is that some property held by them would in a hsort time have reverted to the girl, and they, perhaps, wished to avoid the necessity of parking with it. It is supposed by the mountaineers that Mrs. Thompson carried the gir’s body, at night fourteen miles into the mountains, in order to avert suspicion from herself. The evidence against the two women, however, is entirely circumstantial.

Alexandria Gazette

—

DAYS IN THE DIM PAST

From Ira Lay’s farm west to the Big South Fork River at the mouth of No Business Creek, there is now a good highway known as the Old Monticello Road. In my early days I often had it pointed out to me where the body of a girl was found near this road about three miles west of where Orlena O’Neal now lives. This girl was identified to have been an orphan who had made her home with a widow woman who lived at what is now known as the John Hall Place between Paint Rock and Huntsville, some fifteen miles from where the body was found.

It was never fully explained how she happened to be where she was found or the cause of her death. Tradition says she was not wanted in the widow’s home and that the widow was seen passing the Foster Mill in the night riding her grey horse with the girl. At that time there was a settlement along the river and it is thought that the widow thought she would find her way to the settlement from where she was left. The cause of her death was never solved. At that time the woods was full of wild animals, the widow’s dog was found guarding the girl’s body when she was found.

Scott County News (Source: The Independent Herald, 7 Oct 2021, B24&A9)

Two murder victims who died in 1872 formed the beginnings of the Chimney Rocks Cemetery in what we now know as the Big South Fork National River & Recreation Area.

There are a total of 58 cemeteries within the boundaries of the national park. Most of them are small, consisting of only a single grave, or a handful of graves. But some — like Terry Cemetery, Katie Blevins Cemetery and Hattie Blevins Cemetery — are larger. More than simply family cemeteries, they were community burial grounds in the era of human settlement along the Big South Fork River and its tributaries.

Chimney Rocks Cemetery certainly falls among those larger community burial grounds. But, of them all, it is perhaps the most unkempt. Like the Katie Blevins Cemetery near Bandy Creek, and the Terry Cemetery near No Business, Chimney Rocks Cemetery is privately-owned. But, unlike those other two, it is rarely maintained, though descendants of those buried there visit frequently and decorate the graves of their ancestors.

Chimney Rocks Cemetery is also known as Slaven Cemetery, and for good reason. There are at least eight Slavens buried here (several dozen graves are marked with uninscribed field stone and cannot be identified, or are not marked at all), more than any other family except for the Smiths who lived nearby. There are eight Smiths buried here, too. The two families make up exactly half of the verifiable graves at Chimney Rocks.

The Chimney Rocks Cemetery is frequently visited, as evidenced by the worn footpath that winds between the graves. These are mostly visitors to the Big South Fork NRRA, the curious who see the cemetery as a spectacle as much as anything else. And there’s nothing wrong with that. For the stones and epitaphs contained within it help tell the story of the people who defined this land before it was ever a tourist destination.

Angeline Moore

The story of young Orphan Girl Angeline Moore has been told over and over through the years. It’s a shocking story … and a sad one.

Young Angeline was just 15 when she died in early 1872. She was found beaten to death on Huckleberry Ridge on Jan. 6, 1872. If you look today, you won’t find Huckleberry Ridge on any map. But it would’ve been nearby, because her body was discovered on the old Monticello Road, which snaked through the Big South Fork between Huntsville and Kentucky, traveling through the No Business community. The best-guess estimate, based on writings from over the years, would place Huckleberry Ridge just outside the current boundaries of the Big South Fork NRRA, near Station Camp Road.

While the commercial headstone that was placed at Chimney Rocks Cemetery long after Angeline Moore’s death calls her an “Orphan Girl,” newspaper reports from the day indicate that her mother was very much alive and well, living in Kentucky. Some accounts said that the girl was indentured to a family in Huntsville.

The finding of Angeline’s body was sensationalized by newspapers across the region, as was commonplace in that day. One called it “a mountain horror.” Another asked, “Murdered or starved, which? Sad fate of a beautiful girl.” The Knoxville Daily Chronicle described the discovery of her body like this: “The body bore evidence of brutality and inhumanity at the contemplation of which a demon might shudder…her collar bone and one rib were broken. The left eye was smashed in, apparently by a severe blow, and the entire body, most horribly mutilated, bore witness to refined cruelty, which is at once sickening and a burning shame to advanced civilization.”

Angeline Moore’s body was originally buried, then exhumed for an inquest, then buried again at Chimney Rocks. What became of her original headstone after the commercial headstone was placed years later isn’t clear, but it is no longer at the cemetery.

There was never justice for young Angeline. The woman to whom she had supposedly been indentured, Keziah Thompson of Huntsville, was indicted in connection to her death, as was Thompson’s daughter, Sallie Thompson. However, they were acquitted at trial.

(Angeline Moore’s death was the subject of a chapter of “Murders in the Heartland.”)

Dan Pennington

Just six months after Orphan Girl Angeline Moore was found dead and buried at Chimney Rocks Cemetery, another resident of the Station Camp area was murdered and buried there: Daniel Pennington.

Dan Pennington was 26 when he was killed by his brother-in-law on July 10, 1872. He was the husband of Susanna Slaven, who was five months pregnant with their first child.

For reasons that aren’t clear, Pennington wound up in a fight with Susanna’s brother, Elias Meshack Slaven, known to his friends as Shack. Amid the fight, Slaven fired a gun at Pennington. Pennington returned fire, striking Slaven in the shoulder.

Perhaps fearing retribution, and rightfully so, Pennington left his home and hid in the underbrush nearby. It wasn’t long before another of his wife’s brothers, Stuard Riley Slaven, approached Pennington and shot him.

Susanna later testified in court that her husband told her before he died that he saw Stuard Slaven running away after shooting him. Reports from the time indicated that Steward told others, as he packed up his belongings and prepared to flee the Big South Fork region, that there was no need for the law to go after Shack because it was he who had killed Dan Pennington.

Both Meshack and Stuard Slaven were indicted for Pennington’s death, but neither ever stood trial. Another man, Anderson Lewallen, did stand trial, but was acquitted.

Meshack, Steward and Susanna were the children of Absalom Slaven, the grandchildren of Richard Harve Slaven, the first white settler on No Business Creek a few miles down-river from Station Camp. Richard Harve Slaven is buried at Nancy Smith Cemetery. His descendants can also be found at Katie Blevins Cemetery and Hattie Blevins Cemetery.

Four months after Dan Pennington’s death, his son, William Marion Pennington, was born. William left the Big South Fork for Missouri and later settled in California. Stuard Slaven never returned and eventually died in California, while Meshack also left and later died in Missouri.

Susanna Slaven remarried to William Owens, whose family will be featured in a future segment of “Sacred Ground.” When he died, she left the Big South Fork for Mt. Pisgah, Ky., where she died in 1935.

Within just a few years of Dan Pennington’s death, all of the players in the saga had left Station Camp.

The Slaven family

Absalom Slaven, the father of Susanna Pennington Owens, Meshack Slaven, and Steward Slaven, was buried at Chimney Rocks when he did in 1877, at the age of 67. He was the third person buried there; the first to be buried there after Angeline Moore and his son-in-law, Dan Pennington, in 1872. His wife, Elizabeth “Betty” Wood Slaven, died in 1903 and is buried at Chimney Rocks, as well. Absalom and Betty had at least 11 children.

Other members of the Slaven family buried at Chimney Rocks include Absalom’s son John Wesley Slaven (1838-1878) and his wife Mary “Polly” Blevins Slaven (1838-1918), the daughter of Jacob and Catie Blevins who are the namesakes of the Katie Blevins Cemetery at Bandy Creek.

There’s also 10-year-old John William Slaven, who died in October 1884; P.A. (or Pa) Slaven, who died in 1887; and Onva Slaven, who died in 1927.

Ruth Slaven, who died in 1888 at age 20, was transcribed among the graves at Chimney Rock by Robert Bailey in his 1994 book, “Cemeteries of Scott County, Tennessee.” However, Tim West and Sue Posey were unable to locate her stone when transcribing the cemetery in 2012, and the Independent Herald was unable to locate it more recently.

Findagrave lists John “Moccasin” Slaven and his wife, Elizabeth Smith Slaven, as being buried at Chimney Rocks. However, their graves were not transcribed by either Bailey in 1994 or West in 2012, and also have not been located by the IH.

Finally, Bell More Slaven, who died in 1916 at age 28, is believed to be buried at Chimney Rocks. However, a stone cannot be located.

The Smith family

The Smith family was one of the more prominent families to settle the Station Camp area in the 19th century. The patriarch of the family was Anderson Smith (1800- 1890), who is buried at Chimney Rocks. Both he and his wife, Sarah “Sally” Slaven (1796- 1888), who is also buried at Chimney Rocks, lived long and fruitful lives. Sally Slaven was a daughter of Richard Harve Slaven. They established a farm on Laurel Fork Creek near where it empties into Station Camp Creek a couple of miles west of Chimney Rocks.

Among the members of the Smith family buried in the cemetery with Anderson and Sarah Smith are their sons, Absolom “Ab” Smith (1834-1899) and William Smith (1831- 1892).

Also buried at Chimney Rocks is another of Anderson and Sarah’s children, Civil War veteran David Smith (1846-1891) and his wife, Amanda “Mandy” Litton Smith (1853-1932), the daughter of Littleton and Polly Coile Litton. Their son, Preston Smith (1894-1931) is buried there, as well.

Preston married Bettie Smith, the daughter of John J. “Hawk” Smith and Polly Ann Blevins, who lived up-river a few miles near Angel Falls. Her brother was Alford Smith, for whom Alford Smith Road to Angel Falls Overlook trailhead is named. (Bettie survived Preston by many years, dying in 1984, and is buried at Hazel Valley Cemetery in Oneida.)

Preston and Bettie’s oldest son, Floyd, was killed in 1933 at age 17 and is buried at Chimney Rocks. According to his death certificate, he was shot in the back of the head and died instantly.

Another of Anderson and Sally Smith’s children was daughter Catherine Smith Blevins, wife of Jacob Blevins and namesake of the Katie Blevins Cemetery. Polly Blevins Slaven, who is buried at Chimney Rocks, is their granddaughter.

Interestingly: The farms of both Anderson Smith and Absolam Slaven, two men buried at Chimney Rocks, were raided by Confederate guerrillas in 1863 as the precursor to the Duck Shoals Skirmish that left several of the Rebels dead. Both men were widely known as Union supporters during the Civil War.

A tale of tragedy

While some of those buried at Chimney Rocks — like Anderson and Sally Smith — lived very long lives, others’ graves tell tales of tragedy — like young Angeline Moore, Dan Pennington and Floyd Smith.

There’s also another tragedy that is told by the headstones here, and it’s one that played out on many farmsteads throughout the Big South Fork region and beyond in the 1800s: death by childbirth.

Lottie Blevins, the daughter of Harvey and Poppy Litton Blevins, and the granddaughter of John and Elvira Litton who settled the Litton Farm near Bandy Creek, married Claude Crabtree in 1931 at age 19. Five years later, in February 1936, they had their first child: daughter Shirley Faye.

But Lottie died just four days later, presumably from complications of childbirth. She was 36. She was buried at Chimney Rocks, and Claude Crabtree was left alone to raise his daughter. But that September, baby Shirley fell sick and died, too. She was buried a few feet away from her mother at Chimney Rocks, a small lamb adorning her headstone.

Claude Crabtree remarried in 1939 and left Big South Fork Country for Texas. But he never had another child.

Other children buried at Chimney Rocks include three-month old Victoria Blevins, who died in 1905, 14-year-old Sarah Blevins, who died in 1920, and infant Viscal Blevins, who died in 1911. Victoria and Sarah were the daughters of Newton and Mandy Blevins. Viscal was the son of Harvey Blevins and Poppie Litton Blevins, the brother of Lottie Blevins Crabtree.

There are also three baby Burk graves at the cemetery. Their stones do not contain birth or death dates and it is unclear whether they are the children of Emily “Emma” Burke, who was buried at Chimney Rocks after she died in 1926, at age 37. It seems possible that they were, however; according to some sources, Emma died in childbirth. She was the wife of Diance Burke.(Source: The Independent Herald, 13 Apr 2023, p24-27)