Brown (Duncan) Cemetery

ANDERSON, Joseph, a stranger from Georgia-1816. BROWN, George, son of Duncan & Margaret Brown, 8 Mar 1800 - 19 Jul 1817. 4172C/4172/4173 SMITH, John, a Scotch sea captain, husband of Kate Brown Smith-1823. ADAMS, Dr. Adams, 1826. PEVINES, Mr. Pevines, 1826 McFADDEN, Archibald, 1827 BROWN, Minnie, daughter of Duncan and Margaret Brown, 9 Oct 1805 - 23 Oct 1827 4171C/4171/4173 McFADDEN, Mrs. Archibald, 1827. MAXWELL, Thomas, 1831. BROWN, child of Peter Brown, 1833. SMITH, Kate Smith, wife of John Smith, and sister of Duncan Brown, 1843. Unknown adult grave - stack rock tomb likely for one of the above listings without a photo 4174/4173 Listings without a photo are from Flournoy Rivers manuscripts - circa 1895. The only tomb rocks there today are for George and Minnie Brown, and one stack stone box grave which does not have a name on it. However the area of the cemetery with these three graves is mowed and well maintained today.

President's Page (undated from the Giles County Historical Society) This Duncan Brown page is dedicated to Flournoy Rivers, who visited cemeteries and published a list of those buried in each in the Pulaski Citizen way back into the mid 1890s. This was a labor of love for Mr. Rivers, just as it is for some of us today. Those who visit cemeteries and copy all inscriptions for people buried there are called Necrologists. One of the cemeteries Mr. Rivers recorded was the Duncan Brown Cemetery listed above and located in the Bryson community. This cemetery, on the Newman Hollow Road, is just barely on the East side of Interstate 65. Like so many rural cemeteries it has been almost totally destroyed; in fact, it was almost totally destroyed in the mid 1890's. This cemetery bears Duncan Brown's name; however, Duncan and his wife are buried in the Bethany Cemetery which is one-fourth mile East of here. Duncan as you may remember from Tennessee history is the father of Tennessee's governors: Neil S. and John C. Brown. According to Mr. Rivers the oldest grave in the Duncan Brown Cemetery is that of Joseph Anderson, said to be a stranger, from Georgia, who was buried in 1816. The last person buried there was Kate Smith who died in 1843. Kate was Duncan Brown's sister, and wife of a Scotch sea captain named John Smith who was also buried here. John Smith fought with Lord Nelson in the sea "Battle of Trafalgar" off the coast of Spain in 1805. In this battle, the combined Spanish and French navies were completely defeated by Lord Nelson assured Great Britain's supremacy of the seas. According to James McCallum, writer of Early History of Giles County, who was a relative of Captain Smith, said Smith came here from Glasgow, Scotland in 1810 or 1811. No birth date is given for Captain Smith, but McCallum does say the Captain had been in the British Navy for many years. This was a small cemetery, as far as we can determine, only eleven graves were listed by Mr. Rivers in the 1890's. I (George Newman) will list those graves in order of death dates, and include the comments made by Mr. Rivers. Also because of a photographic survey of George & C. Wayne Austin on 17 Mar 2011 the photos were included.

Sources: Listed in Giles County Historical book "Cemetery Records of Giles County Tennessee", Page 55-56. Updated with photos and resurvey based on the digital photography 17 Mar 2011 by George Newman and Wayne Austin. Listing first compiled by 
Flournoy Rivers about 1895 then published into the book mentioned in 1986. Later utilized in the Presidents Page of the Jan 2008 Giles County Historical Society Bulletin by George Newman. which was then copied here for this site 7 Apr 2011 by C. Wayne Austin. 
Presentation improved 11 Jul 2017.