Isaac McInturf owned about fifty acres of land where the present cemetry is located, and started the cemetery when his family cared for a sick Civil War Soldier. It seems that a small regiment of soldiers was guarding Blythe’s Ferry in 1863 and was camped overlooking the ferry near the cave on the bluff.
W. N. Holman remembered a small skirmish on November 13, 1863 near the bluff between the soldiers of the Union Army and the Confederate Army. Mini-balls were found there decades later (James County Book 94). On the day of August 21, 1863, Federal troops showed up at Blythe’s Ferry (Joseph Roark’s Life and Times 306).
They had run off most of Mr. McInturf’s cattle and used the corn from his crib. When they left the area sometime in 1863 there was a sick soldier who couldn’t travel, and the McInturf family took him in and cared for him until his death. When the soldier died, McInturf laid him to rest under the cedar trees on the hill. That was the first burial at the cemetery. Of course, McInturf buried his family there and the cemetery came to be.
In later years, George Burnette donated a parcel of land to expand the cemetery. Mark Stokes also collected money and another parcel was purchaed. Long-time caretaker Roy Roark resigned and the community installed a new board. Kenneth McKinney, Kenneth McCallie, Bradley Selvidge, Yvonne Moon, Rueben Shadden, and Bobby Shadden were named to the board. One of the Isaac McInturf’s daughters, Catherine, married Thomas Lane. Kate McInturf Lane was a school teacher and taught at the old Gravel Hill School that was located on the Lower River Road in the field near the old Browder Cemetery (the Mark Burdette place).
Thomas Lane owned property that bordered the Jim Priddy property, according to the 1936 TVA map. Kate Lane, his wife, inherited part of her father’s place and the property line ran down the center of the McInturf Cemetery near one of the cedar trees. This parcel included approximately forty acres. Kate donated land to continue the tradition of making it a community cemetery. She and her husband Thomas lived in a house just across from the Carl Mathew’s place, in the curve of the road.
Taken from “The History and Heritage of Birchwood and Salem, Tennessee”.
(James Thomas “Tom” Lane and Catherine V. “Katie” McInturf Lane are my Great Grandparents. Isaac and Nancy Casey McInturf are my Great Great Grandparents.
Submitted by: Rosemary Lane Woodall)
My Hudgens Family History Findings 