The Cemetery that Moved: 52 Ancestors 2026 Prompt “At the Cemetery”

 

The Houston Family, Provine Cemetery and the Propaganda Power of the Tennessee Valley Authority

William “W. L.” Houston: 1867-1917 (Maternal 2nd Cousin 2x Removed)
Mary Nall Houston: 1879-1910 (Wife of Maternal 2^nd Cousin 2x Removed)
 

While I was reviewing Ancestry records for cousin William Houston and his wife Mary Nall Houston, I was surprised to discover a link to a database called the “Tennessee, U.S., Relocated Cemeteries Index, 1787-1975”. I had never heard of this database, and had no idea why William and Mary, who were born and died in Kentucky, would be included in such a database. I did some research and discovered that the database was created by the Tennessee Valley Authority, the country’s “largest public energy provider” which also manages the Tennessee River to prevent flooding. The TVA built a series of hydropower dams on the river, creating huge reservoirs that flooded towns, farms, homes and cemeteries along the river. The database lists all the graves that potentially were to be or actually were relocated before their cemeteries ended up under water. The list was huge. I was stunned. I am ashamed to admit I never thought about the personal costs to communities and families that lived in the path of huge hydropower projects like the TVA. I wanted to learn more, and I wanted to know what happened to William and Mary Houston’s graves.

William Lee Houston was Bruce’s second cousin twice removed, the son of George Houston. George was the nephew of Bruce’s second-great-grandfather William Parker Leachman. William was born on September 15, 1867. He became a farmer in McLean County, Kentucky. On October 18, 1899, when he was 32 years old, he married nineteen-year-old Mary Nall. The couple had two children, Mary Lee and George Garrison Houston, before Mary’s death in 1910.

Tragically, the children were orphaned just seven years later when Willie died unexpectedly on February 4, 1917. His son went to live with Mary Nall Houston’s brother and his family, and daughter Mary Lee married William Kennedy two years later.

                                       Gravestones of Mary and William Houston

William Houston and several of his brothers and cousins all lived and farmed around the community of Gilbertsville in Marshall County, Kentucky. When William and Mary died, they were buried in the Provine Cemetery, which was probably in Gilbertsville as well. 

Town of Gilbertsville in 1938, before it was razed by the TVA.

The town lay on the banks of the Tennessee River, and when the TVA decided to build a dam and create the Kentucky Lake Reservoir in the late 1930s, the area was condemned and bought up through eminent domain. The entire town of Gilbertsville was demolished in the 1940s and relocated west of the original site, which is where the dam now lies.

Downtown of the original Gilbertsville, Kentucky, circa 1938. All these buildings were razed.

I searched for the original location of the Provine Cemetery. Nothing. Not one record. I found a document that mentioned the full name of the cemetery was the Provine Missionary Baptist Church Cemetery. When I searched for Provine MB Church, I once again found no records. The church no longer exists, and there is no history that it ever existed. Even Findagrave is totally silent on the fact that the Houstons and hundreds of other people who had been laid to rest in the original Provine Cemetery were now in New Provine Cemetery, located in the community of Benton, miles west of the town of Gilbertsville. The cemetery description on Findagrave says nothing about the first Provine Cemetery. It is as if the existence of the original cemetery is some deep, dark secret.

Location of New Provine Cemetery in Benton area.

When I studied maps of the new cemetery, I could see it lies next to the Briensburg Baptist Church, which has its own cemetery on the opposite side of the church. A third cemetery is located across the road—perhaps another “relocated” cemetery? I wonder if the church donated or sold the land as an act of charity towards the displaced dead and their families. 

New Provine Cemetery

The New Provine cemetery is obviously a newer cemetery. It lacks any mature trees, and is quite barren. Knowing that much of it consists of reburials makes sense. The rows of graves are ruler-straight with no empty spaces between graves. I examined the list titled “Provine Missionary Baptist Church Cemetery, Marshall County, Kentucky TVA Cemetery Relocation Project 1940-1942”. The list included the names of 375 people buried at the original Provine. When I compared random names from that list with the TVA records of relocated graves, all of those individuals appeared in the TVA records, with the notation that the graves were relocated in 1942. Much of the New Provine Cemetery is obviously made up of graves from the original cemetery.

This must have been huge news at the time. People who had lived in the area for generations were now being forced to sell, and they probably received less than market value as compensation for their lost homes, businesses and farmland. And all those cemeteries—all dug up and moved to different locations. People must have been upset. There must have been concerns over how government money was being spent and about how families were being hurt. But bizarrely, I can barely find a mention of what was happening in the local newspapers. Why?

The only newspaper mention of Provine Cemetery’s relocation is a public notice posted by the cemetery’s board on the relocation, asking interested parties to attend a meeting with a TVA representative to “express your desires”. One of the board members was John Houston, William’s brother. The Marshall County Courier didn’t cover what happened at the meeting or how the community felt about the decision to dig up the graves and move them. Once again, why?

Marshall County Tribune Courier notice, Feb 13, 1942

Apparently, the governmentmade sure to suppress any dissent. Newspapers were discouraged from covering the personal tragedies involved in this forced relocation of thousands of people. A book by Laura Beth Daws and Susan L. Brinson argues that the TVA ran a very successful propaganda campaign to create a positive image in the press. A review of the book by Charles Kenneth Roberts in the Journal of Southern History stated:

“Through a blitz of press releases, speeches, photographs, and carefully cultivated relationships with reporters and editors, the TVA ensured “overwhelmingly positive” media coverage (p. 94). Thanks to these efforts, the media, especially local papers, told the stories and used the interpretative frameworks that the TVA wanted. As a result, Daws and Brinson note, ‘Two potentially contentious issues were noticeably absent from press releases: the removal of families and displacement of graves from the reservoir areas’(p. 105).”

The horrifying thing, from a genealogical perspective, is that it appears records of the lost communities, property records showing ownership of farms and business, and even pre-TVA maps of the areas were destroyed, so the history of what existed before the creation of the TVA and Kentucky Lake is mostly gone. The only pre-TVA dam plat maps that still exist were created by the TVA to detail the properties that were to be acquired. The only reason the maps exist online today is because they seem to have been “liberated” from the TVA by one single person.

Houston family farms marked in red. 1938 TVA plat maps.

These plat maps show some of the farms still owned around 1940 by William Houston’s brothers and relatives: Joe, John and “Hum”, which I believe was William’s brother Herman or “Herm” Houston. Herm was also buried in Provine, but he died after the creation of Kentucky Lake, so he was buried in New Provine and wasn’t relocated like William. It is sad to look at the map and see all the land the family was forced to give up. They had to relocate, just as their brother’s coffin was relocated.

Photo of workers clearing the land to be flooded by the Kentucky Reservoir, early 1940s

I am grateful to have discovered that William and Mary’s graves were relocated. It led me to learn about the human costs of the Tennessee Valley Authority. School history books portray the TVA as all positive, bringing reliable and affordable electricity to rural areas. But progress came with a high price tag for many families who had built their lives along the Tennessee River.

 

Sources:

Roberts, Charles Kenneth. Review of The Greater Good: Media, Family Removal, and TVA Dam Construction in North Alabama, by Laura Beth Daws, Susan L. Brinson. Journal of Southern History 86, no. 1 (2020): 216-217. https://dx.doi.org/10.1353/soh.2020.0028.

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/748731

https://tva-azr-eastus-cdn-ep-tvawcm-prd.azureedge.net/cdn-tvawcma/docs/default-source/environment/land-management/cultural-resource-management/tva_cemetery_data_12-2020.pdf?sfvrsn=4facc689_2

Relocated Cemeteries: Tennessee Valley Authority. https://www.tva.com/environment/environmental-stewardship/land-management/cultural-resource-management/relocated-cemeteries

Provine Missionary Baptist Church Cemetery, Marshall County, Kentucky TVA Cemetery Relocation Project 1940-1942. Submitted by: Bill Utterback http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000033 http://files.usgwarchives.net/ky/marshall/cemeteries/provine.txt

https://history.ky.gov/markers/site-of-old-gilbertsville

Photos of old Gilbertsville. https://www.fourriversexplorer.com/kentucky-dam-historical-photos/