Marion marking historic grave

POWELLS CROSSROADS, Tenn. — Ransom D. Smith’s descendants are scattered, but some family members and the Daughters of the American Revolution will mark his grave in Marion County today.

DAR member Mary Keith Bowen said the Judge David Campbell chapter from Chattanooga will dedicate a marker at Teague Cemetery near Powells Crossroads, Tenn.

Ms. Bowen visited family graves at the cemetery for 50 years but never noticed Mr. Smith’s marker until last year, she said.

“I came upon this marker that said ‘Revolutionary War Patriot,’” she said.

She knew the DAR marked such graves, so she checked the organization’s registry and found Mississippi descendant Hazle Neet, whom she called to ask permission to mark the grave.

That set local DAR members working on today’s ceremony.

“Little did I realize how many people in the valley over there, including myself, were related to this man,” she said.

Mr. Smith was a private in the North Carolina Militia who served under seven different captains and colonels in the Revolutionary War. After the war, he lived in Claiborne and Campbell counties before moving to Marion County. He was 93 when he died in 1854.

He and his wife, Elizabeth Moss, had several children, and his original marker was erected near the graves of his son and daughter-in-law, Thomas and Catherine.

But Helen L. Smith Hoke, a great-great-great-great-granddaughter of Mr. Smith, said his grave was moved to a family farm in Sequatchie County after a flood. “I have been researching him and our family for over 10 years,” Ms. Hoke wrote in an e-mail.

Ms. Bowen and Ms. Hoke have not yet met to share their stories, but Ms. Bowen said she plans to ply Ms. Hoke for information that will fill some gaps in their ancestor’s history.