Mostly forgotten, historic First Evergreen City Cemetery is hidden in plain sight on South Main Street

First Evergreen City Cemetery.

I got the itch to get out and do some riding around last Thursday, so I struck off down Perryman Street and eventually turned right onto South Main Street. The weather was fine, and it occurred to me that spring was right around the corner.

Not far down South Main, I pulled over into the Franklin Medical Clinic parking lot with an eye towards checking out what’s known as the First Evergreen City Cemetery. This cemetery is interesting because it’s located just off heavily-traveled South Main Street, but few people in Evergreen even know that this cemetery exists. For those of you unfamiliar with its location, it’s located in a wooded area, just south of Christian Memorial Funeral Home.

I waited for several cars to pass before crossing the street and entering the woods. As I made my way through the trees and vines, I was reminded of the last time that I’d visited this cemetery. It was a number of years ago with local history expert Sherry Johnston and retired Army Ranger Frank Murphy.

Johnston showed Frank and I a number of lesser-known cemeteries that day, and the hidden cemetery on South Main was our first stop. According to Johnston, this antebellum cemetery was the first to be established within the town limits of Evergreen. Before the railroad came through Evergreen, Main Street was, well, the main street in Evergreen, which is also why the old Baptist widows and orphans home was also built on this street.

Later, with the establishment of what is now called the Historic Evergreen Cemetery on Perryman Street, the South Main cemetery fell into disuse for unknown reasons. Johnston also noted that some people buried in the first cemetery were exhumed, only to be reburied in the larger Historic Evergreen Cemetery. Why this was done, I do not know.

It's unclear just how many people are buried in this old cemetery, but just eyeballing it, I’d guess there are at least six or seven graves still there today. None of them have headstones, so no one really knows who is buried there. My feeling is that the wooded plot is likely full of unmarked graves.

Years ago, I remember Frank using dowsing rods to see if he could find unmarked graves. I’d never seen anyone use dowsing rods before, so I was really interested in watching what he was doing. The metal rods he carried crossed a number of times, which seemed to indicate where someone was buried long ago.

Records are scant but seem to indicate that members of the Brantley and Kennedy families were buried here. Tabitha Pace Brantley, who passed away at the age of 80 in 1857, is said to be buried there. Members of the Kennedy family buried there include Balduroy Kennedy and Haney Dennard Kennedy.

In the end, I’d like to hear from anyone in the reading audience with more information about the First Evergreen City Cemetery. Any additional information would help researchers piece together the history of this cemetery and would no doubt be a big help to genealogists. In the meantime, if you get the itch to get out and see this cemetery for yourself, don’t go alone and keep your eyes peeled for snakes.