City's past buried in a dozen graveyards

Old cemeteries in the City of Forest Hills offer a glimpse into the past and the families that made this area their homes.

As an outgrowth of the community that created them, the historic cemeteries served as focal points for family and religious celebrations as well as a storehouse for genealogical data from past generations.

A total of 15 family graveyards were documented to exist in Forest Hills by a survey completed in 2011. Of those, three have been lost or destroyed, leaving a dozen cemeteries with graves marked by fieldstones or tombstones.

The McCrory-Mayfield House on Old Hickory Boulevard and the Thomas Kennedy Jr. House on Hillsboro Pike, both on the National Register of Historic Places, have family cemeteries with marked graves on their grounds.

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The Compton family, led by Henry Compton Sr., settled on Hillsboro Pike around 1815. He became one of the area’s most prominent landowners by 1860, owning about 1,300 acres along Hillsboro Pike and Tyne Boulevard. A drawing of his estate (circa 1880) shows the family cemetery surrounded by a stone fence. The graveyard with 22 tombstones still exists, and the home is eligible for the National Register of Historic Places.

In addition to large estate-holders in the area, a number of small farms were owned by African-American families after the Civil War, including the Adams family renowned for its stone masonry. Most of the stone walls along Hillsboro Pike were constructed by the Adamses, the artisanship passed down generation to generation.

The Adams family cemetery off Hillsboro Pike has three tombstones, one with an interesting distinction: It marks the grave of a Civil War soldier who served in the U.S. Colored Infantry. Harvey Kimball apparently married into the Adams family and came here to live after his service.

Other cemeteries in Forest Hills bear the remains of the Blunkall-Blankenship family on Tyne Boulevard (33 tombstones), the Garner family on Old Hickory Boulevard (11 tombstones), the Cotton-Taggart family on Granny White Pike (14 tombstones), and the Cotton family on Robert E. Lee (three tombstones). In addition, an unnamed cemetery on Otter Creek Road has 15 graves marked with fieldstones without names.