The Family Cemetery In Appalachia

The family cemetery in Appalachia has played an important role in social life, local history, and culture since Daniel Boone led the earliest settlers through the Cumberland Gap. The early settlers were coming into a country in which there were no roads, no white or European presence, and no prior history by their own kind of people. It was a rugged and dangerous environment. In a very short time, accidents, child birth, Indian warfare, and disease began to take their toll. Customs and sanitary norms of the time required that the dead be buried immediately. A certain percentage of those deaths took place even before the settlers were near an area where they intended to stay long term. In those cases, the dead were simply buried in the next available bit of ground where it was soft enough to dig. Many of those trail side graves have been lost for centuries. At times of Indian warfare, it was also not unknown for the settlers to make attempts to conceal the graves of their dead. They generally would have done this for two reasons: 1) to conceal losses of able bodied fighters from the enemy; and, 2) due to generally unfounded fears of desecration of the graves. But after settlers had found the piece of land they intended to call home, they buried their dead on their own land. A small piece of land would be chosen at the time the need first arose. The first grave would be dug and that spot would be designated the family cemetery for the Browns, or White's, or Hicks'. These first and most eventual graveyards in Appalachia were usually located on a piece of high ground, often with a good view of the surrounding area. It was often a favorite spot of the head of the household. There was also a common belief that on resurrection morning the dead in Christ would arise with the first rays of the morning sun. The higher elevations usually got morning sunshine earlier than low lying ground. It was also common for graves to be placed with the face of the dead toward the sunrise.

Memorial Meeting On The Grounds Of The Elijah Smith Cemetery

Random Appalachian Cemetery Photo

On Sunday, September 24, 2017, my wife Candice & I attended a traditional Appalachian Memorial Meeting on the grounds of the Elijah Smith Cemetery in Dingus, KY, in Morgan County.  The service was conducted by Rev. Lonnie B. Wright and other ministers and members of the Enterprise Association Of Regular Baptists.  There were about forty people in attendance with most of the crowd tending toward the elderly side.  Several members of the congregation commented that the crowd was smaller than it had been in past years.  We attended the service primarily because Candice is friends with Shirley Robbins who also cleans our house and several members of her extended family are buried on the cemetery including her parents, Clint Howard and Ella Wright Howard .  We had known both of them and used to visit them before their recent deaths.  We also encountered a few other people we knew at the service including one of Candice's providers at ARH Physical Therapy in West Liberty.  I did not take any photographs of the service or the crowd since I was uncertain if anyone would object to being photographed.  

The cemetery is located on KY 437 off KY 172 between West Liberty, KY, and Crockett, KY.  The cemetery is located on a hillside but has a relatively good gravel road to the hill behind the cemetery.  The graveyard is fenced with chain link fence and has several benches made from 2" x 12" plank on cinder blocks.  There is even a lectern for the ministers although few of the Regular Baptist ministers ever stay stationary behind a lectern, podium, or altar.  The service began with several songs and eventually three ministers including Lonnie B. Wright preached in the typical rambling, unstructured fashion of the Regular Baptists.  Most of those ministers would say this style of preaching is about "letting the Lord lead you" or "doing what the Lord tells me to do".  The hymns are older, traditional, and not usually found in a Broadman Hymnal.  Most of the various associations of Old Regular Baptist Churches use some form of locally printed hymnal without music notation.  Here is a link to the one hymnal I can find online that claims to be designed for the Old Regular Baptists.  I do not personally own an Old Regular Baptist Hymnal and probably should find one for times like this.  

The service lasted about two hours and the crowd gradually wandered off after checking a few graves of people they knew.  Several of the graves had new flowers and other decorations which is usually more common around Memorial Day in late May.  It was interesting to see a memorial meeting on a cemetery which I had not attended in several years.  Many, if not most of them, have gradually died out.  Someone in the crowd mentioned that they "need to build a shed up here" which used to be common on Appalachian Cemeteries.  I grew up near one in Knott County Kentucky, the Turner Cemetery, which for many years had a building with a large roofed area of seating, stand, and podium which would have seated more than a hundred people.  But a forest fire got out near the cemetery and jumped to the stand and burned it.  It has never been replaced.  These meetings arose from the circuit rider tradition shortly after settlers arrived in the mountains.  People often died in those days and were buried without a minister being present.  Then, on his next pass through that area, the minister would hold a service on the cemetery for the recently deceased.  It is interesting to see the tradition being practiced in any context in today's world where so much of our Appalachian Culture, Traditions, and History are gradually disappearing.