Elizabeth Whaley grave at Plemmons Cemetery in Great Smoky Mountains National Park

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See the Greenbrier Region web page for an interactive location map.

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The Plemmons Cemetery is one of the largest in Great Smoky Mountains National Park with over 700 graves. To find it, drive down Greenbrier Road and take a left on Ramsey Prong Road, which is a little ways past the Greenbrier Picnic Area. As soon as you make the turn you will cross a small bridge over a creek and then a second bridge almost immediately after that. No farther than the distance between the two bridges is a pullout that leads to a dirt road with a chain across it to block vehicle access. The cemetery is a half mile down this road.

I assume the road is only used by those who have family members buried in the cemetery, so everyone else must walk. The paved road takes you halfway before ending at a cul-de-sac-like parking area, and even those who were able to drive this far must now continue on a narrow trail. Both the road and the trail are easy to hike, with negligible inclines at worse. Anyone who can walk a mile (round trip) can make it to the cemetery. Plan to spend about an hour for the visit.

Road to the Plemmons Cemetery in the Greenbrier region of Great Smoky Mountains National Park

On the way to the cemetery you will pass the ruins of some sort of structure where rows of cement columns protrude from the ground. There is nothing at the site identifying what once stood here, but while doing research I found a reference that claimed this was a former school. A church was also supposedly in this area, so perhaps these are the church ruins.

Ruins of an old school on the road to the Plemmons Cemetery in the Greenbrier region of Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Ruins of an old school on the road to the Plemmons Cemetery in the Greenbrier region of Great Smoky Mountains National Park

The cemetery will first strike you as way too large for one or two mountain families, which means it was most likely a church cemetery. If you take a look at the tombstones, you will notice many familiar names: Whaley, Mayes, Ownby, Cantrell, Husky, Bohanan, Rayfield. What you won’t find is any Plemmones. It turns out that the cemetery name comes from David Plemmons, the last preacher of the church that once stood here (thus the theory that the earlier ruins are the former church). He donated the land for the cemetery expansion not too long before everything was bought up by the state government. Plemmons Cemetery is the name the National Park Service gave this burial ground. It was originally called the Greenbrier Cemetery. Most of the cemetery names were coined since Great Smoky Mountains National Park was established, and it is not uncommon to find a cemetery referenced by multiple names.

There are some pretty neat tombstones located here. My favorites are the budget memorials that look like the inscription was hand chiseled on a river stone. The guy etching it would run out of room and have to cram the last few letters together to fit everything on one line. Some were inscribed by people without much education, evidenced by backward letters and misspellings like “borned.”

Grave of S. B. Whaley (4/2/1885 to 8/11/1901) in the Plemmons Cemetery, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Grave of John M. Pate (12/23/1874 to 9/13/1876) in the Plemmons Cemetery, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Grave of D. M. Pate (3/6/1877 to 10/16/1887) in the Plemmons Cemetery, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Grave of R. P. Cantrell (7/16/1896 tp 9/1/1896) in the Plemmons Cemetery, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Many of the graves were made of river stone, and the inscriptions have long since faded away. They now only anonymously mark a grave of a former resident. Some living family members had the foresight to replace the rapidly deteriorating stones with a granite memorial, and these were placed at the base of the old stone, preserving the identify of the person six feet below.

Worn river stone grave in the Plemmons Cemetery, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

A new memorial stone for William Whaley in the Plemmons Cemetery, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

A new marker replaces the old at the grave of infant Hazel Whaley in the Plemmons Cemetery, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Partial letters and 1873 is all that remains of the hand inscribed stone in the Plemmons Cemetery, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

And yet some of the original stones appear to have weathered time without much difficulty.

Grave of Elizabeth Mayes (3/20/1853 to 1875) in the Plemmons Cemetery, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Grave of Juliam Whaley (2/26/1850 to 9/14/1888) in the Plemmons Cemetery, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Grave of Sarah Iona Ogle (11/4/1892 to 11/14/1893) in the Plemmons Cemetery, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Grave of Blanche Proffitt (4/25/1906 to 1/2/1907) in the Plemmons Cemetery, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Grave of Luzenia F. King (12/3/1871 to 12/25/1903) in the Plemmons Cemetery, Great Smoky Mountains National Park

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