Old Gray Cemetery

08/24/2026

Eugenia Williams (1900-1998) is much in the local news lately due to the recent opening of her restored mansion on Lyons View Pike. Her family history is a rich narrative of old and new money, travel and tragedy, and cultural changes during and after world wars, a saga that continues to captivate. To better understand the enigmatic Eugenia, we begin with her grandparents Tully Robinson Cornick, Jr. (1853–1902) and Laura Elvira Sydnor (1855–1895).

Tully Cornick, Jr., was one of 13 children, one of 9 who survived to adulthood; and, like his father Tully Cornick, Sr., was a prominent Knoxville attorney. He was born in Knoxville but in infancy, his family moved to MO where they resided for 13 yrs. They returned to Knoxville, and Tully was educated at UT. He then read law but could not get a license until age 21 in TN, so he ret’d to MO and was admitted to the bar in 1871 at age 18. On Jan 6, 1876, he married Laura Sydnor, the daughter of a Civil War Col. from Troy, MO, an exurb of St. Louis. Ella, Eugenia’s mother, was born exactly 9 mos later on Oct 7. Three more children followed, Tully III, Sydnor, and Howard.

Tully worked primarily in estate law with three successive partners and had an office on Prince Street (now Market St). The 1880s and 90s were the Gilded Age when rail travel spurred luxury tourism, and the Cornicks traveled on holidays—to the Intl Cotton Expo in Atl in 1881, to resorts in Florida, New Orleans, and Biloxi, MS, and to TN’s popular mineral springs: Lea’s, Oliver, Neubert, and Tate.

A side story to railroads could probably fill another chapter. In brief: the firm of Cornick & Shea was also a RR contracting firm. The Cotton Expo had showcased Atlanta's recovery and aimed to attract investment, leading to improvements in infrastructure, including railroads. On March 22, 1884, in the interest of RR expansion, Tully and his partner traveled to Guatemala via the steamship Dallas to meet with President Barrios. Laura, a Miss Lilly Gosselin, sister-in-law of Col. E. A. Lever, foreign editor of the New Orleans Times-Democrat, and two other New Orleans couples were in the party. The Cornicks and Miss Gosselin were to “return on horseback to Port Livingston, over the mountain ranges that intervene between the city of Guatemala and the Caribbean coast and will there take a ship to New Orleans.” In late May, the Times-Democrat reported that “Mr. Cornick has secured for his firm a most valuable and profitable contract to build and equip 62 miles of the line from Pt. Barrios to El Meco, Mexico.” Unfortunately, in 1886, well into construction, there was an uprising in Guatamala which destroyed their profits and broke up the enterprise.

In Aug 1888 Laura leased “an elegant new home on W. Clinch” in front of the post office and planned to open a family hotel which the Tribune predicted would be the “toniest little hotel in the South.” The Oxford opened in Oct, but nine months later the entire contents were sold at auction, and the new hotel was soon under new management. In 1893 the Cornicks traveled to Chicago for the World’s Fair. Laura spent the summer of 1894 on a ranch near Houston, TX, possibly for her health. In Dec of that year she and Ella traveled to San Antonio to spend the winter in the hope of benefitting Laura’s health. In early Jan 1895 Laura, now ill with consumption (TB), Tully, and 19-yr-old daughter Ella made a second trip to San Antonio, TX, this time hoping to prolong Laura’s life. While there, the couple’s 3-yr-old son Howard, who had been ill during the 3 wks his parents were in TX, died on Jan 25 before they reached home. Laura, it was reported, never left her bed and died on Feb 8 at age 39.

Ella Cornick (1876-1914) attended East TN Female Institute and School of Music 1892-94 and graduated in June with honors. The School had been renamed in 1892 and was under the leadership of Prof Charles Ross and a new faculty. In Dec 1893, the Cornicks held a dinner party in Ella’s honor, “altho not yet formally entered into society,” and 48 “members of the gay society” played a progressive game of hearts at 12 tables. In Aug 1895, six mos after her mother’s death, Ella and a friend made an extended tour of the lake region and along the Canadian border and on the return were entertained by friends in Boston and NYC. In Dec 1895, she attended the second annual reception of the Cumberland Club, a formal affair in the club rooms on Clinch. Two of the members of the Cumberland Club were her father and Dr. David Hitt Williams. In May 1896 she and three female friends took a summer abroad, departing NYC for Glasgow the first week of May and arriving home in late September.

Ella married Dr. David Hitt Williams (1863-1929) on Dec 21, 1896, at St. John’s Episcopal, Rev. Samuel Ringgold officiating. Williams was born in AL and came to Knoxville in 1891 to practice medicine and teach in the Knoxville Medical College. The wedding was called the “crowning social event of the season.” “Hundreds of invitations” were issued, there were throngs in attendance, and two police officers stood at St John’s entrance to make sure all guests were “properly credentialed.” A smaller number attended the reception at Mr. Cornick’s “elegant home” Melrose. The couple honeymooned in FL and returned to a suite of apts in the Vendome. They were a popular addition to the city’s social life. In 1897 Ella was a member of the Ossoli Circle and charter member and treasurer of the newly created Tues Morning Musical Club, and David of the Fortnightly Medical Club. They enjoyed annual vacations at Ponce Park, FL.

The Williamses had three children, Eugenia in 1900, Elizabeth in 1906, and David, Jr., in 1909. Dr. Williams was an avid fisherman, and the Williams family wintered in Fl and had a cottage in Ft. Myers. Eugenia’s younger sister Elizabeth died in 1908 at age 1 yr 9 mos. In 1913, Eugenia entered Birmingham School for Girls, later called Grier School, a boarding school in Birmingham, PA. Her mother was reported to have contracted pneumonia in April, 1914. In June Ella went to Asheville, but on return was “indisposed.” But was it pneumonia? TB was called “the White Plague,” and so prolific locally Knoxville was considering building its own sanatorium. There was a women’s Anti-Tuberculosis League. The Knoxville Red Cross sold anti-TB Christmas Seals. In Aug 1913 at Knoxville’s Conservation Exposition, Dr. Mary Lapham, who had a national reputation as a specialist in the treatment of TB and was the physician at the Highlands Camp Sanatorium in NC, had given a lecture on TB. The Camp had 60 “tent houses” (see photo below) which allowed patients to get fresh cold air and a three-story infirmary with an X-ray machine. In the Camp’s history, hundreds were cured, but around mid-Oct 1914, Ella went to Highlands and died there on Oct 28. Eugenia was 14.

Eugenia returned to Birmingham after her mother’s death and graduated in Jun 1917. David, Jr., had died of rheumatic fever in 1916 at age 7. During summers over the next two years she traveled in PA visiting school friends, and some of those friends visited her in Knoxville. In Nov 6, 1920, Eugenia married Richard Gordon Chandler (1897-1958) in the Fifth Av Presbyterian Church. Unlike her parents, their wedding was witnessed by only members of the two immediate families and, according to the Sentinel, “was unusually beautiful in its simplicity.” Chandler, not long out of WWI military service, was employed in insurance and real estate. Eugenia’s father was initially against the marriage but later, as reported, the two men grew greatly attached to each other as they had much in common, esp hunting and fishing. The Chandlers made a honeymoon tour of Washington, New York, and other eastern cities and first lived in an apt in the McKinney Terrace on W. Main and Locust (now a parking garage).

Chandler seems to have had a more outgoing personality than Eugenia. He inherited much of this from his father, William Porter Chandler, who had long been a popular figure in Knoxville, having progressed from newspaper reporter to editor, then successively to postmaster, police chief, and state senator. Gordon had become a local hero after joining the Expeditionary Forces in France and suffering minor injuries there. He was already a successful businessman, became an avid hunter and trophy fisherman, and owned a series of luxury automobiles, including the first Rolls-Royce in Knoxville in 1931. Eugenia and Gordon had no children and divorced in 1936. Chandler remarried Hazel Gose (1908-1992) in 1938, and they had two children.

In 1938 Eugenia acquired a permit to build a $2K barn to house her mule. She had the plans drawn by architects Barber & McMurray. In 1939 she razed her father’s house and extensive gardens and built the 2-story, river-view mansion on Lyons View Pike designed by Knoxville architect John Fanz Staub. Except for her successive appeals to have her property tax assessment (the largest in Knoxville) reduced, her name was rarely in the news. But it was always on the list of donors to local fundraisers—the Empty Stocking Fund, the Halsey Home for Friendless Babies, the Community Chest, Baptist Hospital Pledge Drive, Knoxville Journal Milk Fund, the Salvation Army.

Amid all the sadness and litigation, we close with a brighter subject in Eugenia’s biography—her close relationship with her grandfather Tully Cornick, Jr.’s second wife, Anne Inglis Scott (1872-1951) of Paterson, NJ. Tully and Anne had met in Orlando in Dec 1896 at a mutual friend’s wedding. “The acquaintance was renewed” the following Apr during Anne’s visit with a Knoxville friend. On Nov 11, 1897, Tully and Anne married in St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Paterson. Tully was a month shy of 44, and Anne was 25. Eugenia, only three, probably had few memories of her grandmother Laura Cornick. Anne became Eugenia’s step-grandmother, but Eugenia always called her Aunt Annie. Anne became a beloved educator in Knoxville city schools over almost 30 years including 16 years as the city’s first female principal (Boyd Jr Hi 1913-29). Tully and Anne’s only child, Rosa, died in 1900 at age 2. Tully died in 1902 at age 48, and Anne never remarried. In 1916, two years after Ella’s death, Eugenia lived with Anne in an apt in the McKinney Flats, possibly during Eugenia’s holiday breaks from boarding school. For Eugenia’s graduation in 1917, Anne hosted a dinner and theater party for her, and they were still living together that winter. In 1919 the two traveled to Atlantic City. In 1929, David Hitt Williams’ will included a $5,000 bequest to Anne “for her kindness to his family.” David died on Oct 1 and Anne retired a month later, a year before retirement age. The bequest may have been a factor. She traveled with Eugenia and Gordon after their marriage--Aug 1931 to Ft. Myers, Oct 1931 to NYC, Feb and Mar 1932 to FL. Eugenia and Anne also traveled to NYC in May and Oct 1931 and spent several weeks in FL in Nov and Dec 1931.

Anne moved away in the 40s, and we have no record of their relationship after that. Newspaper society pages became “women’s pages,” then shrank to mostly wedding announcements. But we do know that, for a time, these two women—one who had lost an only child, a daughter, and one who had lost her mother—may have enjoyed a special bond.

08/15/2026

08/08/2026

Hazel Lee Goff (1885-1969) was a Knoxville trailblazer in the early years of professional nursing. Her father was an assistant teacher at Bell House School and musically gifted. He sang frequently in the Knoxville Choral Society. From 1902-1906 Hazel’s mother, Fannie Caulkins Goff, held a private school in her home which “fitted the students [about 20] for Knoxville city high school.” Hazel was friends with Laura Tyler, future mother of James Agee. The two were in the art school of the Nicholson Art League and in 1902 exhibited work at the Woman’s Bldg at Chilhowee Park.

Hazel attended UT’s Summer School of the South in 1905 and 1907, then took a teaching job in NY but disliked it and, in 1913, entered St. John’s Riverside Hospital School of Nursing in Yonkers, NY. She returned to Knox in 1920 and continued her education. In 1922 she was the first of three graduates in the new Ft Sanders School of Nursing. Up until that time, the only hospital in Knoxville was Riverside which was established in 1917 in a converted apartment house on Riverside Drive. The new Ft. Sanders Hospital which opened in 1920 was said to be modern in every respect. In 1928 Riverside and Fort Sanders hospitals were consolidated, operating as the Riverside-Fort Sanders Hospital. Later, in 1930, St. Mary’s was opened, adding 64 more beds to Knoxville’s hospital facilities.

After graduation, Hazel was mentioned in Knoxville newspapers frequently for her many activities. In 1926 she was elected president of the Knoxville Nurses' Assn and Chairman of the State Nurses' Institute. In 1929-31 president of the TN State Nurses' Assn and president of the Riverside-Ft Sanders Alumnae Assn. In Nov 1930 she was a member of the TN delegation to the White House convention on child health and afterward spoke on the subject at local schools and child welfare organizations. From 1932-33 she was Exec Secy of the TN State Nurses' Assn and from 1935-36 First VP of the Knoxville Nurses’ Association. For many years she was Instructor and Supv of nurses at Ft. Sanders, a member of the state advisory committee on nursing, and the American Red Cross.

In 1936 along w/six other nurses she attended, via train, the natl biennial convention of the American Nurses’ Assn in LA. On the return she took the northern route thru Canada to visit Lake Louise, a glacial lake within Banff National Park. From 1938-1955 she was Director of Nursing Educ at Ft. Sanders and from 1954-58 President of the Tn League of Nursing. For 30 yrs she was a delegate to the State Nurses' Assn convention in Nashville. For many yrs she was an officer of the City Assoc of Women’s Clubs in Knoxville. From 1957-61 she was Pres of East TN League of Nursing.

In Dec 1961 she organized a special ceremony in the lobby of the main post office in celebration of the first commemorative Nursing Stamp and sale of first-day covers. After 40 yrs in the profession, she retired in Mar 1961 but didn’t slow down. She immediately joined the Pink Ladies, the Hospital Auxiliary. In 1963 she rec’d an Auxiliary service pin. She was also downtown Knoxville unit leader for the League of Women Voters, an active member of the Council of Community Svcs, and Conference of Christians and Jews.

In the fall of 1962, when the film All the Way Home, based on James Agee’s novel A Death in the Family, was being filmed in Knoxville, Hazel was interviewed in the Knoxville Journal about her brief visit w/James Agee in NY in Mar 1955, two mos before his death. She had been on her way to CT to visit Agee’s mother, then Mrs. Erskine Wright. Hazel and Laura Tyler Agee Wright had been lifelong friends and corresponded frequently.

Hazel never married and, from 1952 until her death, lived with her unmarried sister, Miss Elizabeth (“Bessie”) Goff, a music teacher, on E. Oak Hill Avenue. Before that, she had lived at the Ft. Sanders Hospital Nurses’ Home on Laurel Avenue. She said the hospital was almost like home. Of her former graduates, she said, “They’ve stayed my friends long after they’ve left the hospital. I hear from them often.” A fitting tribute to her success as a teacher.

07/29/2026

Rev. Samuel Ringgold (1825-1911), native of Kent Co, MD, is one of the most interesting and revered people in Knoxville history. He was raised by his grandfather on a farm on the Eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay. In 1846 he shipped out aboard a whaler fr New London, CT, which sailed to South Africa. After a year at sea, he went to London, and about a year later arrived back in MD to the farm he had inherited. He soon grew tired of the agrarian life, sold the farm, and spent a few years trying occupations in MD such as clerk and insane hospital attendant. At the age of thirty he settled in Louisville, KY, where he became a bookseller and stationer. While there, he joined Christ Church and, under the encouragement of the pastor, began to study for the ministry. There, he married Emily Comley with whom he had two sons and two daughters.

Ringgold was ordained in 1861, and for the next three years served at Christ Episcopal Church in Bowling Green, KY. The Civil War divided the Episcopal church and made life for its ministers difficult and dangerous. KY at the time was Confederate, and ministers were ordered to pray for the president of the Confederate States, not the United States. Ringgold’s church was under marshal law with several govts claiming jurisdiction. An envelope was left on the rectory steps containing three bullets and a note ordering him to fly the Confederate flag under penalty of death. He ignored it. He was threatened with arrest and imprisonment if he held a burial service for a Confederate soldier, a Methodist, in the church graveyard. He said something to the effect, “I’ve been ordained by a higher power. After I’m done, do with me what you will.” The service went on as planned. Union troops seized Christ Church in 1862 and later razed it to use the bricks for chimneys in their tents.

In 1864 Ringgold became rector for Trinity Church in Clarksville, TN. He was essentially a missionary--in addition to suburban work, he labored ceaselessly at Rossview, then known as 'White Chapel,' now defunct, but once located five or six miles across the Cumberland River. Emily died in 1871 or 1872. It was in Clarksville that Ringgold met his second wife, Isabella Florida Richardson (1849-1938), native of Jackson, MS, who had studied at the Female Institute in Columbia, TN. Florida taught music in Clarksville—piano, harp, and singing. They married in 1874 and had two daughters. From 1874 to 1877 Ringgold was rector of Trinity Church in Hannibal, MO. In 1877 he became rector of Grace Episcopal Church in Cedar Rapids, IA, and in 1883 earned his Dr of Divinity degree at Griswold College of Davenport, IA, a school founded under the auspices of the Protestant Episcopal Church. Many of his sermons were reprinted in the Cedar Rapids Gazette. In 1886, one of those was a masterly argument against “money in politics and voting for bad men, the duty of Christian people, and the sin of complicity,” words that are particularly resonant today. In 1885 he was elected Grand Chaplain of the Cedar Rapids Grand Masonic Lodge.

It was in Cedar Rapids that, due to a powerful sermon by Ringgold, the town’s first hospital was built. The sermon recounted a tragic event he had witnessed on Apr 9, 1882. At midnight during a driving sleet, the deputy marshal received a call that a stranger had been injured in the rail yards. Three men arrived, found a mangled body, bleeding profusely but still breathing, and carried him, on a door pulled from a shed, to the fire station where they laid him on a cold floor beside a small coal stove. The man asked if there was an Episcopal minister in town. Ringgold was summoned at 1 a.m. and sat with the man until he breathed his last breath in the early morning. The following Sunday, his sermon was an impassioned plea for a new hospital. The story of his time with the dying stranger brought many to tears. The congregants emptied their pockets and, if they had no ready cash, wrote pledges. The cornerstones were laid in early May with much ceremony. There were addresses and orations, Ringgold was appointed president, and his famous sermon was printed in entirety in the Gazette. The initial hospital had space for only 15 patients, but generous donations of money and land soon allowed expansion. The hospital, now known as Unity Point Health-St. Luke’s Hospital, is one of two hospitals in Cedar Rapids.

In the winter chill of 1885 Ringgold lost his voice, and the family spent a four-month leave of absence in Jacksonville, FL. The harsh Iowa winters were hard on him and the two little girls. His health was the reason he resigned at Grace and accepted, after repeated calls, the rectorship at St. John’s in Knoxville in 1887. The first St. John’s began in 1846 as a small brick building on the corner of Walnut and Cumberland. But it was badly in need of repair and too small for the growing congregation. In Apr 1890 the congregation decided to build a new church which they expected would be completed during the year. The new church was dedicated on Nov 27, 1892. Ringgold was criticized for building such an elaborate church and for accruing such debt ($40,000), and although his health suffered from the physical work and nervous strain, the debt was finally cleared in 1895.

Wherever he was, Ringgold was always active in charity work. He was a founding member and trustee of Knoxville Associated Charities. He was responsible for the new orphanage in Park City which accommodated 30 children, and in its history only one child was Episcopalian. On weekdays, he was a general missionary for East TN, rehabilitating dilapidated churches, encouraging despondent congregations, and establishing mission posts from Athens to Johnson City.

In 1907, when Ringgold retired from the ministry, a large crowd attended his farewell address at St. John’s, and his entire sermon was printed in both the Knoxville Journal & Tribune and the Cedar Rapids Gazette a week later. In 1908 the Ringgold family spent two weeks in Cedar Rapids where he was an honored guest for the semi-Centennial celebration. Rev Ringgold’s last official participation was his attendance at the 3-day Holy Convocation of the East TN Episcopal diocese in Morristown, TN, on Feb 7, 1911. He died on Sunday, April 9. His funeral on Monday was ritualistic and largely attended, including clergyman from across the state. A Knights Templar honor guard led the long cortege down Cumberland to Gay St and on to Old Gray for the closing service and hymns. At the end of the last hymn, the choir, two by two, dropped 32 white roses into the grave which was lined with ferns and evergreens. A profusion of floral arrangements were banked upon the mound.

Lucy Templeton, KNS columnist and early St. John’s member, recalled Ringgold as a “man of saintly face and patriarchal beard...like one of the apostles. He was a man of strong character and decided opinions.” St. John’s Cathedral is the oldest Episcopal congregation in East Tennessee. It became the cathedral of the diocese in 1986 and remains a monument to the man who was called “a living sermon more helpful and convincing than high sounding pulpit oratory.”

07/25/2026

A bio of Dr. Thomas Quincy Martin was posted here in 2021, but we recently found this tribute to him in the Confederate Veteran Magazine, 1910.

07/06/2026

One of the largest family plots in Old Gray belongs to the McClung family, all descendants or relations of Col. Charles McClung, native of Lancaster, PA, surveyor, lawyer, merchant and county official who laid out the town of Knoxville. But today, we pay tribute to Col. McClung’s grandson, Pleasant Miller McClung (1824-1863), who died young in the Siege of Knoxville and was mourned locally as one of the great heroes of the Civil War. He was named for Pleasant Moorman Miller, his mother’s father.

Little is known of the early life of Pleasant McClung. He, too, was born in Lancaster, PA, the son of Charles McClung, Jr., but grew up in Knoxville. We do know that Pleasant was interested in literature. The first mention of him in local newspapers was the 9/14/1842 Knoxville Register which listed him as one of the graduates that year of East TN Univ and that he read an essay titled “Poetry of the Sea” at commencement. In an 1844 Knoxville Register his name appears in a list of men who were members of the Young Men’s Literary Society of Knoxville in an Act of Incorporation by the TN Legislature. For several years after graduation Pleasant lived at Mulberry Farm, several hundred acres situated 13 miles west of Knoxville near Campbell Station. The property was owned by his uncle, Matthew McClung. In April, 1846, Pleasant married his first cousin Mary Ann McClung, daughter of Col. James White McClung.

Pleasant was a charter member of the ETN Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He was also a member of the Whig party and one of the earliest and most ardent supporters of the Confederate States. In 1861 Pleasant ran for State Senate on the Southern Rights ticket but lost. That same year he was one of several men who formed a regiment of volunteers. “The first hostile encounter of the Civil War, at Knoxville, was on June 23, 1863, when Col. Wm. Saunders, on his raid through East Tennessee, fired a few cannon shots at the town, by one of which Capt. Pleasant McClung was killed.” (Knoxville Sentinel, 12/31/1900)

A belated tribute appeared in the Nov 27, 1932, Knoxville Sentinel: “In many, and crowded, cemeteries, the grass grows on lowly mounds, the white and pulseless marble glints in the sun as it rises and sets, and the birds sing their quiet requiem in the air…. Capt McClung was the last living descendant of two persons distinguished in the history of Tennessee and Knoxville. He was the great-grandson of William Blount, governor of the territory south of the Ohio from 1792 to 1796 and also James White, founder of Knoxville (the capital of the territory) and fellow worker of Blount in the organization of Tennessee.” When word of Sanders’ advance, messengers alerted the townsmen “To the Front,” and “To Arms,” and men rushed to Summit Hill. There were few injuries on either side, but one was Pleasant M. McClung, “a young man of specially amiable and genial qualities.”

Both of Pleasant’s legs were shattered above the knee, and he died two hours later. It was reported that at the end, while pressing the hand of the kneeling minister, Pleasant included among his petitions to God forgiveness to those who had shot him. He was 38. His and Mary’s five daughters were ages 16, 14, 12, three, and two.

In the spring of 1891, Confederate Decoration Day, organized by the Ladies Memorial Association, was first observed in Bethel Cemetery and the National Cemetery. On Jun 3, 1903 (the anniversary of the birthday of Jefferson Davis, President of the Confederacy), memorial exercises were also held in Old Gray where flowers and small white flags were placed on Confederate graves. Today, Pleasant’s modest tombstone is often overlooked among the more impressive monuments of his family, but is always remembered on Memorial Day.

06/28/2026

Recognition is due the woman who named Old Gray. Like most women in the 19th C., little is known of Henrietta Maria Brown Reese (1805-1859), but from the men in her family, we can surmise that she, too, was well educated.

Henrietta’s paternal grandparents were from Ireland, emigrated to VA, and had 21 children , eight of whom died fairly young (Family Search). Her grandfather, Rev. John Brown, graduated from Princeton College in 1749, became a Presbyterian minister, and pastored churches for 44 yrs in VA. “He established a grammar school near his residence one-fourth mile north of the village of Fairfield in Augusta Co, VA. In 1774 the Presbytery of Hanover adopted this school and appointed William Graham teacher under Brown. In 1777 the school was transferred to Timber Ridge and later it was moved to Lexington. Rev Brown was a trustee of this school, then known as Augusta Academy, from 1776 until 1782. From it developed Washington and Lee University. Rev Brown retired 1796 and acquired a 250-acre estate in Woodford Co, KY, which he named ‘Sumner’s Forest.’” (WeRelate.org)

The careers of several of John’s children reflect the substantial quality of their parentage: John, Jr., read law with Thomas Jefferson and was a member of the First Congress, Samuel was a professor in Transylvania University, James was a United States senator from Louisiana and Minister to France, and William was a physician in South Carolina. According to Findagrave, Dr. Preston Brown, Henrietta’s father, was “a graduate of the School of Medicine in Philadelphia, and favorably known to the profession as a successful practitioner of medicine in Kentucky.” He was born in Rockbridge Co.,Virginia, the 18th of 21 children, eight of whom died fairly young. Little is known of Henrietta’s mother, Elizabeth Watts Brown, other than, that she, too, was born in VA, which, at the time, was a British colony.

Henrietta was born in Campbell, VA, and spent her early childhood at the family home, Sumner's Forest, a 630-acre farm in Woodford County, KY. The family moved to Frankfort, Franklin Co., KY, in 1819 for “better schooling.” Tragically, in 1826, Dr. Brown was fatally shot while trying to mitigate a dispute between neighbors. Henrietta was 21 at the time, one of five children still at home, the youngest age 11.

Henrietta married Judge William Brown Reese (1793-1860) in 1834 in Frankfort. She was 29; he was 41. This was Reese’s second marriage. His first wife, Sarah Cocke, died in 1829 at age 27, and their only child, a daughter, had died two years before at age eleven months. William and Henrietta first lived in Nashville where he was a TN Supreme Ct judge. He resigned in 1847 due to poor health and in 1850 was named President of East TN Univ, at which time the couple moved to Knoxville.

The naming of Old Gray took place in 1850 after the purchase of land and before completion of an act of incorporation. Col. John Crozier, one of the original founders of Gray Cemetery, described the process of determining a name in an article which appeared in the Nov 12, 1882, Knoxville Daily Tribune. “Each trustee was to offer a name, or various names. Some of these ended ‘dale,’ ‘wood,’ ‘vale,’ or began with ‘mount.’ Unanimous approval was given to none. A deadlock confronted the new organization after about fifty names had been suggested. This was broken when Judge William B. Reese, who was then president of East TN Univ, said, ‘Well, gentlemen, I consulted my wife about the matter, as I do every other, and she suggested a name which I did not put down on my list.’ Instant inquiry from fellow trustees evoked the answer from Judge Reese: ‘She suggested that we should call it Gray Cemetery in honor of the poet Gray who wrote ‘Elegy in a Country Churchyard.’ The suggestion at once took like wildfire, as a speedy unanimous vote recorded.”

Gray’s Elegy was anthologized in in 1751 in Revolutionary America and gained resonance in the New Republic, particularly in the 1800s which were defined by devastating epidemics. In Knoxville, as in growing towns across America, the poem was a favorite in homes and schools. References to the poem and/or announcements of new editions appeared in Nashville newspapers over 300 times between 1838 and 1865. To date, the Elegy has gone through 320 editions, most of which are illustrated, and 266 translations in 40 languages.

We don’t know how Henrietta felt about naming Gray Cemetery. Their children, at least two, were grown at the time. William resigned as president of ETN Univ in 1853 due to declining health. Henrietta, also in “frail health” for the last few years, died in July 1859 at age 53 or 54. William died the following July of “pulmonary consumption,” an old term for tuberculosis, likely the cause of Henrietta’s death also. But her choice of Gray as a name continues to resonate because of the universal appeal of the poem and its lasting impact on readers and writers alike.

The long poem can be read in entirety at Poetry Foundation:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44299/elegy-written-in-a-country-churchyard