Cemeteries Near Abandoned Coal Mines of Dayton, Tennessee

You can help support my cemetery research here:
https://www.TheCemeteryDetective.com/...

This area, outside Dayton, Tennessee, is steeped in human and natural history.
I stopped in to the Hiawasee Wildlife Refuge to watch and listen to winter flocks of sandhill cranes numbering in the thousands.

At the Cherokee Removal Memorial Park I learned about the trail of tears and the march of the Cherokee during their removal in 1838.

When I was growing up, I first came to this area on a school trip. That was prior to the existance of the highway
60 bridge, so, we had to take Blythe Ferry across the Tennessee River.



On today’s episode of The Cemetery Detctive, I continue with my study of how geology affects what we see in cemeteries. Not only does geology affect the gravestones that are used in many cemeteries, geology also affects the lifestyles of the people who live in the communities served by these local cemeteries.

With all the rain we have had in recent weeks, I took a trip to Dayton Tennessee to hike the Laural-Snow trail and visit a few of the coal mine in the area. Though coal is not used as a gravestone material, coal was a way of life for many decades in this nook of Tennessee.

On this trip to Dayton, I took side excursions to the Hiawasee Wildlife Refuge to see thousands of winter flocks of Sandhill Cranes. Their calls pierce the skies and I heard traces of them all day long. Also in the area is the Cherokee Removal Memorial Park. In 1838 the Cherokee people were removed from their lands. Blythes Ferry was a major gathering point for the Cherokee as they made their way westward along the Trail of Tears.

I remember riding a school bus over Blythes Ferry when I was much younger. This was prior to the building of the Highway 60 bridge over the Tennessee River.

Local cemeteries always house so much local history. On this cemetery hunting trip, I visit:
Buttram Cemetery
McInturff Cemetery
Barbie Sims Cemetery
Garrison Cemetery

Garrison Cemetery is the final resting place of Return Jonathan Meigs. Meigs County, Tennessee is named in his honor. Return was a Colonal in the Revolutionary War and he became an advocate for the Cherokee as they were negotiating their treaties.

Garrison Cemetery also offered interesting gravestone lessons. I found a handmade formed concrete gravestone with colored marbles spelling out the deceased’s name. I also found a limestone grave marker undergoing the destructive process of delamination.

All the while, as I spend the day studying Garrison Cemetery and others, I heard Sandhill Cranes flying overhead and a freight train’s distant whistle echoing across the landscape.