S

The Coffee County Historical Society hosted its annual picnic membership meeting Saturday, July 13 at the Coffee County Administrative Plaza Community Room.

In addition to a shared meal, the event also featured guest speaker Shawn Chapman, archeologist with Arnold Engineering Development Center. Chapman presented a report on the eight cemeteries on the government installation properties.

The history of the installation in the report spans several periods of history. These include the early days of Tennessee when the area was a living community with roads, hours and farmlands to pre–World War II, when the property was Camp Peay, a Tennessee National Guard camp. During World War II, the land became a part of Camp Forrest, a United States Army training site. In its current history, the United States Air Force serves as the tenant of the land, which utilizes it for research and development.

The eight cemeteries are known as: Anderson Cemetery, Chapel Hill Cemetery, Elder-Fagg Cemetery, Fieldstone Cemetery, Hickerson Cemetery, Huffar Cemetery, Price-Essmann Cemetery and Rutherford-Shipley Cemetery. The graves date from the early 1800s until about 1920. Two of the cemeteries are inside the gated area of AEDC and require special accommodations from the public affairs office of AEDC to visit. The Chapel Hill Cemetery has the largest number of graves followed by the Price-Essmann Cemetery.

Interest in this topic began in December 2022, when a Manchester Times report indicated that a comprehensive cemetery survey was underway. The results of the completed study were presented to the attendees by Chapman using projected graphics for the eight cemeteries on the government installation. During the study, two highly sophisticated methods were used including ground penetrating equipment. The equipment could determine the presence of individual graves by analyzing the soil density where graves had been dug compared to adjoining spaces. The report states that there were a total of 119 graves in the eight cemeteries. Some of the graves had no markers, some had stones, and a very few in later years had headstones with names.

Some of the graves were originally in the area now covered by the reservoir known as Woods Lake. In the early 1950’s families of those buried in this area were given the opportunity to have family member graves relocated. Some of the graves in the lake floor were relocated to an island in Woods Lake.

The Coffee County Historical would like to thank Shawn Chapman for an excellent and well-received presentation.