University of Tennessee, Knoxville TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange Masters Theses Graduate School 8-2000 On the Hallowed Hill: An Analysis of the Historic Cemeteries within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park Jacqueline Lott University of Tennessee - Knoxville Follow this and additional works at: https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes Part of the Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Lott, Jacqueline, "On the Hallowed Hill: An Analysis of the Historic Cemeteries within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. " Master's Thesis, University of Tennessee, 2000. https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_gradthes/3276 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. It has been accepted for inclusion in Masters Theses by an authorized administrator of TRACE: Tennessee Research and Creative Exchange. For more information, please contact [email protected]. To the Graduate Council: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Jacqueline Lott entitled "On the Hallowed Hill: An Analysis of the Historic Cemeteries within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park." I have examined the final electronic copy of this thesis for form and content and recommend that it be accepted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the degree of Master of Arts, with a major in Anthropology. Charles H. Faulkner, Major Professor We have read this thesis and recommend its acceptance: Benita J. Howell, Susan R. Frankenberg Accepted for the Council: Carolyn R. Hodges Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School (Original signatures are on file with official studentecor r ds.) To the Graduate Counci l: I am submitting herewith a thesis written by Jacqueline Lott entitled "On the Hallowed Hill: An Analysis of the Historic Cemeteries of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park." I have examined the final copy of this thesis for forms and content and recommend that .,t be accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, with a major in Anthropology. Charles H. Faulkner, Major Professor We have read this thesis and recommend its acceptance: Benita J. Howell Accepted for the Council: Associate Vice Chancellor and Dean of The Graduate School On the Hallowed Hill: An Analysis of Historic Cemeteries within the Great Smoky Mountains National Park A Thesis Presented for the Master of Arts Degree University of Tennessee, Knoxville Jacqueline A. Lott August, 2000 Acknowledgements I would like to thank a number of people for their kind support and generous assistance. First and foremost, I would like to thank my thesis committee, for their guidance and suggestions. Without their help, I would have spent a great deal more time wondering about how to best utilize my data and achieve the results that I have been longing to see since the inception of this project. Specifically, I would like to express my sincere appreciation to Dr. Charles Faulkner, for all of his help in developing my skills as a writer, a researcher, and an historical archaeologist. His encouragement and support have meant a great deal to me. I would be extremely remiss were I not to mention the dozens of volunteers, too numerous to mention, who have lent their time and talent to surveying the historic cemeteries of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. This project could not have been accomplished without their generosity. I would also like to express my sincere thanks to the park's historian, David Chapman, for believing in this project and fighting for it for so many years- may that fight continue until data has been collected for the entire park. I would like to express my sincere appreciation to David Post, a descendant of Cades Cove's Dr. Calvin Post, for reviewing the Cades Cove portions of the thesis. I would also like to thank Dianne Flaugh and Duane Oliver, my resident experts on Cataloochee and Hazel Creek, for answering all my questions. Thank you to my parents, Raymond E. Lott and Susan J. Gadziola, for their constant and continued support, despite the miles that now separate us. I would like to convey my heartfelt thanks to Jonathan Murphy, for his unending support during the writing of this thesis. I am quite certain that this project would have been substantially more difficult, if not impossible, were it not for his encouragement and support. Finally, and most importantly, I would like to thank the people of the Great Smoky Mountains. Thank you for allowing me to feel at ease at your cemetery decorations and family gatherings. Thank you for inviting me into your lives, and for sharing your rich heritage. I hope that this thesis enriches your lives in some way, and that it helps to preserve the history of your people. ii Abstract Though a number of authors have stressed the importance of using cemetery data to study culture change through time, most of the available studies in this regard have been general in nature and completed without statistical analysis. Few studies have concentrated specifically on small, rural cemeteries, and fewer still have concentrated on regions outside of New England. The southern Appalachian Mountains are but one of the many regions that has yet to be studied in-depth. This thesis is an attempt to bridge some of the aforementioned gaps. Historic cemetery data collected in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park will be analyzed to examine hypotheses about the way headstones differ between age groups and genders through time. It is hypothesized that stones will increase in size and possess more intricate detail through time, a result of increasing modernity and improved access to goods and services. It is also hypothesized that stones will display differences in status between genders and age groups. The data indicate that stones have become larger and more ornate through time, that there is little difference between how men and women were treated in death, that religious faith has remained more or Jess constant for the past century and a half, that stones tend to display less personalized information in recent years, and that children under the age of five often possess more personal information, including kin terms, on their stones. iii Table of Contents Chapter Page I. Introduction .............................................................................................................. 1 II. Definition of Terms ............................................ ... ................................. .. ............ ..... 7 Ill. Regional Background ............................................................................................... 9 Cades Cove ........................... ...................................... ............................ .. 10 Cataloochee ............................................................................................ .. 15 Hazel Creek ............................................................................................... 18 IV. Sample Identification and Cemetery Selection ........................................................ 24 Cades Cove ............................................................................................... 26 Cataloochee ............................... ............. .. ............................................... 32 Hazel Creek ............................................................................................... 37 V. Data Collection Methods .. ............................................................................ .. .... .... 41 VI. Data Analysis .. .. ............. : ....................................... ............................ .. .................. 45 Size of Headstones ................................................ .................................... 4 7 Epitaphs ............................................ ........................................................ 50 Symbols .................................................................................................... 53 Kin Terms .............................................................. .................................... 54 VII. Results and Conclusions ...................................................... .................................. 57 References Cited ................................................................................................... 61 Appendix ................................................................................................................ 66 Vita ............................................ ................ .. ........................................................ 117 iv List of Tables Table Page 1. Cemeteries Surveyed in this Study .... .... .. .... .. ........ .. ............. .............. .................. .. 25 2. Number of Graves Analyzed per Region, by Age Category ... ... ........... .......... .... ... ... 47 3. Number of Graves Analyzed per Region, by Time Period .... .... .. .. .. ...... ................... 47 A-1. Individuals Buried in the Cable Family Cemetery, Cades Cove .......... ............. ... ..... 68 A-2. Individuals Buried in the Graveyard Hill Cemetery, Cades Cove ..... .. .. ... .... .. .. .. ... .... 69 A-3. Individuals Buried in the Lawson Family Cemetery, Cades Cove ..... .... ...... ........... .. 71 A-4. Individuals Buried in the Methodist Church Cemetery, Cades Cove .. .. ..... ...... .. .... ... 73 A-5. Individuals Buried in the Missionary Baptist Church Cemetery, Cades Cove .. ......... 77 A-6. Individuals Buried in the Noah Burchfield Cemetery, Cades Cove .... ................