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Located beside 104 Heritage Place Drive, Jonesborough, Washington County TN, the Smith-Babb Cemetery is also called the Federal Cemetery and is carried on some records of the county as the Scott Cemetery. It's GPS location is Latitude 361733N, Longitude 0822741W

Additional Information:

Margaret "Duck" Keys May of Jonesboro, daughter of Lizzie D. Babb and John T. Keys, provided the genealogy above and the list of others buried in unmarked graves. These are as follows:

Turner Smith, 5 Aug 1777 - 25 May 1862

His wife, Mary Ruble Smith, 2 Sep 1790 - [date unknown] [They were married 22 Jan 1809 [Family Bible] 1 Feb 1809 [from Washington Co. TN marriage record] ; she died after 13 Oct 1860. CMB]

Ellen Hendricks (I) Babb, 8 Feb 1878 - 5 Jul 1878. She was a twin sister of Samuel Tilden; they were the children of Isaac Newton and Ellen Smith Babb.

Mrs. Sarah Depew (wife of Lilburn - see L.W. DePugh above)

Infant Vines

Walter McPeak - was a policeman in Johnson City and killed while on duty; was related to the Vines; first husband of Mrs. J. J. Jackson.

Reminiscences of an Old Timer
by Captain Ross Smith, privately printed, 1930:

I was born at Jonesboro, Tennessee, June 10, 1846, the oldest of four children: two sisters and a younger brother. My great-grandparents emigrated to East Tennessee, then the State of North Carolina, about the year 1780. On my father's side, John C. Smith settled on the headwaters of Little Limestone, just east of Jonesboro. He held two land grants: one, 1783; the other, 1784, from the State of North Carolina. These grants are now in the Lawson McGhee Library at Knoxville, Tenn.

John C. Smith had two sons, John and Turner; two daughters, Sarah and Martha. Martha married a Snodgrass. Sarah married Joshua Babb. In 1809, Turner married Mary Ruble, whose parents came from Virginia and brought with them on an old walnut chest made in Ireland in 1788. The Rubles were of Scotch-Irish descent, and I am inclined to think the Smiths were the same stock. My father, W.H. Smith, a son of Turner Smith, lost his left hand in a premature blast near his home. This incapacitated him from hard labor. He afterwards went to school for several terms, and later ran for and was elected County Court Clerk in 1844, a position he held up to his death, in August, 1854.

On January 17, 1845, he married to Mary Ann Mauk by W. H. Russell, a Cumberland Presbyterian minister. On my mother's side her grandparents were German and came from Pennsylvania in 1779, and settled fourteen miles southwest of Jonesboro on Nola Chucky River. Their name was Mauk.

My grandfather, Samuel Mauk, married Sarah Broyles. They had four boys and four girls.

1850 Census Washington County, Tennessee:

240-251 Smith, Turner 72 b. SC farmer, Mary 59 b. MD, Mahala 37, Mary A. 29, Margaret 21, Edmund Waistnor 22, William T. Green 10, Allen Humphreys 3.

241-255 Smith, John R. 25, Margaret C. 22 b. VA.

1860 Census Washington County, Tennessee:

856 Humphreys, John 65, Delila 48, William H. 19, John L. 16, Jesse M. 11, Sarah 8, Laura 6, Mary A. 3.

1003 Smith, Margaret 36, Roswell 13, Emily 11, Ellen 9, Samuel 6; Ruble, Margaret 60.

1004 Smith, Turner 83, Mary 71, Mary A. 35; Humphreys, Ellen 13; Head, Willam 25, Margaret 30.

1005 Smith, John R. 35, Margaret C. 32, William S. 10, Mary A. 8, David C. 6, Sarah E. 4, Elbert 10/12.

1880 Census Washington County, Tennessee:

Vines, Wm. 22, Sarah 20, Mary 2, Walter 1.

Babb, Isaac N. 40, Ellen 29, James W. 12, William N. 10, Lizzie D. 8, Roswell 6, Alice V.4, Ellen H. 11/12.

Seaton, Wm. B. 59, Eliza C. 50, Margaret D. 21, William H. 17, Charles E. 15, Lyda V. 10.

Washington County Tennessee Wills

Smith, Turner 13 Oct 1860

Wife, Mary. Granddauhter, Martha Ellen Humphreys. Grandson, Roswell Smith. At my wife's death sell property for cash. Children: David, Delila, Louisa Tragdon, Rachel Brown, Mary Ann, John, Margaret Head. Executors: son, John Smith, son-in-law Alfred Brown. Wit.: G.W. Telford, Alexander Miller. Probated June Term, 1862.

Signed: Turner [X] Smith

Washington County, Tennessee Death Record Abstracts 1908-1916 by Eddie M. Nikazy, p. 113:

Mary A. Smith, born: 23 Aug 1823, widow, parents: Samuel M. Mauk and Mary Broyles, death cause: "cancer of neck and face," informant: Ross Smith (Jonesboro), died: 29 Jun 1914, record (1914): 233.

Smith Family Bible:

The transcript of the page is as follows:

Turner Smith And Mary Ruble was married on the 22nd of January 1809

David Smith was married on March 29th 1832

John Humphreys and Delia Smith was married on the 10th 1839

Alfred F. Brown and Rachael Smith was married 9th of 1839

William E. Head and Margaret Smith was married on the 22th of April 1858

Martha Ellen Humphreys was married on the of 14th August 1862 to Mr. Wm. W. Morrip

Lot #44 at Heritage Place (owned by John Babb) is the vacant lot that borders the cemetery on two sides. The cemetery itself lies on land that once belonged to John C. Smith, father of Turner Smith. John C. Smith was given two land grants from the state of North Carolina one in 1783, the other in 1784. The cemetery was originally a part of one of those grants. The Lingo home, across the road from the cemetery, was built by William H. Smith. William H. Smith was a son of Turner Smith. The Turner Smith home was a wooden structure located to the right on the hill above the Lingo home as seen while facing the front of the house.

This page was last updated on 01/25/2007