CEMETERIES of HENDERSON COUNTY


Garrett Cemetery

One should never cut the trees from an abandoned cemetery. The Garrett Cemetery in 1999 was an impenetrable thicket. A nearby resident says that a few years ago the trees in the cemetery were harvested. Mature trees shade out undergrowth. In the nineteenth century cedars were planted around many cemeteries. The dense, year round shade of ceders shades out almost all native undergrowth and left the cemetery accessible before the invention of lawnmowers. A cemetery which has fully reverted to woods is also easily accessible. If Garrett Cemetery is left alone for about 30 years, the new trees will grow big enough to shade out most of the other growth and the cemetery can be visited again.


Sallie T. Maxwell, Headstone (shot through telephoto lens)

There are three earlier records of this cemetery. The first was made for the Works Progress Administration by Dovie E. Little and is dated April 19, 1938. It appears in Tennessee Records of Henderson County, Bible Records and Tombstone Inscriptions (Nashville, Historical Records Survey, July 27, 1939, pp. 59-61). Dottie Wiggin recorded Garrett Cemetery in 1976 which she noted to be "in the woods." Her record appears in Henderson County, Tennessee Cemetery Inscriptions (R. H. Harris, Memphis, 1976), Vol. II, pp. 383-384. Lewis Jones also recorded the cemetery. It appears in his Cemeteries in Chester County (1982, p. 26). The cemetery was must have been easily accessible to both Wiggin and Lewis because there was a single marker difference in the number of markers each found and recorded. The marker information below is generally based on the record by Dovie Little. Information in Little is used with one exception. Wiggin is the source for items not listed by Little. (Photo by David Donahue 1999)

NAME BIRTH DEATH SPOUSE PARENTS
MAXWELL, Sallie T. 1863 1921 Sam Maxwell (photo above)

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