Ulster-Scots pioneer buried in a watery Tennessee grave

by Fred Brown

It was said in the beginning, the Long family originated in England. The first Long was an exceedingly tall man, thus he was known as 'Long Henry'. Several of the Longs emigrated to America almost 100 years before the Revolutionary War. The Long family had several branches, but the one that sprung Henry Long in 1782 was different. Henry Long always said he was Scots-Irish, a 'bluehose' Presbyterian, he said. He never changed his story, but there is little to back him up. Only his word!

Soon after coming to America, Henry Long came down through the Shenandoah Valley and landed in Jonesborough, Tennessee.  From there, he floated downriver, passing Knoxville,  where his crude raft was swept by the powerful Tennessee River, created by the junction of the Holston and the French Broad rivers.
Floating the Tennessee River from Knoxville, Henry Long and two companions were awestruck and moved by what they witnessed as the landscape passed before them. Green mountains tumbled into greener valleys, lush lands stretched as far as they could see. It seemed fathomless for these strangers in this bountiful Goshen of plenty.

Henry Long stopped his raft about 14 miles below Chattanooga, Tennessee stepped off into what would be named Mullins Cove and felt he had found a home. Rolling out in front of him was liquid beauty, soaring into Walden Ridge and rugged mountains bluing in the distances.  The river bottom land was a tangled, thick mass of delta canebrake covering miles and miles before him, in a sea of growth and promise.

He began cutting down the canebrake and setting it afire, letting it burn and return to the soil. He cleared the land and built a cabin, put in crops and then married Zilpha Stephens. Before he died in 1875, Henry Long had acquired more than 2,000 acres in the cove and to the mountain tops, according to family historians.
Henry and Zilpha Long were buried on their land, as were many of their descendants. Two of their sons, Jackson and Alfred Long, fought with the Union Army in the Civil War and died in battle.  They had requested to be buried beside their mother in Mullens Cove, and presumably were. Along with their mother and father, their tombstones faced the fields of their past, peering into the sun-kissed cove, provident river and mountains beyond.

Generations of Longs and others followed in the verdant nook until 1905 when life changed in the beautiful cove carved by the Tennessee River.  The Tennessee Electric Power Co. constructed Hales Bar Dam between 1905 and 1913, establishing Hales Bar Reservoir.
In 1939, the Tennessee Valley Authority purchased the power company's property, including Hales Bar Dam. Before the purchase, the electric company had either moved the graves in the Long family cemetery to higher ground or left some, following family wishes that the remains should not be disturbed.
In 1944, TVA and members of the Long family reached a written agreement that supposedly settled the issue: no remains in Long Cemetery No. 2 were to be removed.
But then came TVA's Nickajack Dam, completed in 1967, drowning 10,370 acres and establishing 215 miles of shoreline. Long family graves that were not removed to higher ground became submerged on the wrinkling fringe of the main channel of what was once the Tennessee River.
Three forlorn tombstones stand half out of the water today about 70 yards from the bank where Dry Creek empties into the lake.
In an effort to raise the graves above water level, TVA put in riprap around the original cemetery, built a cement wall around it all, and that was supposedly that.  But over the years, water slowly moved in to cover the cemetery, and now it is under about two feet of water.
A Long family historian from Alabama raised a question with TVA about the submerged graves. TVA said then that the graves were flooded well before the federal agency took over the Hales Bar Reservoir and built Nickajack Dam. In its response, TVA said that when it began building its power system, it relocated 555 cemeteries away from the flooding.   Long Cemetery No. 2, it said, was left, because of the 1944 agreements with Long descendants.
James Boone Long III, who lives in Shalimar, Florida, and recently retired after 32 years in the U.S. Air Force and the Civil Service, has become interested in his family's history and said he has a promise to keep.
His father, James B. Long II, died in 1992, but before his death, he asked his son to make sure the Long cemetery in Mullens Cove was kept up.   Over time James B. Long III honoured his father's wishes, but recently read about Long Cemetery No. 2, the one that is now submerged. He did not know it existed until reading a story about it, and then became concerned.
Recently, James B. Long III and his son, Jacob Long, 14, travelled to Mullens Cove to see the watery cemetery for the first time.  He says the tombstones in the water mystify him, even though he recently became aware of the Long family agreement with TVA.
"One of the tombstones on the hill (a tall, solid monument) weighs at least 1,000 pounds. It was knocked over by trees in a storm."
With the help of Leon Thomason, who now owns a portion of the cove land once held by Henry Long, as well as the shoreline near the submerged cemetery, they righted the heavy tombstone with a tractor.  Named on the headstone is James Long, who was born in 1855 and died in 1907, and is James Long III's great grandfather.
"Why did they remove some of the tombstones and not all of them?" James Long III asks as he and his son tour the Long cemetery on the hillside.
Heavy woods and trees overlooking the flooded lake and the partially submerged tombstones surround the hillside cemetery.
He also toured the watery tombstones in a boat to see his Long ancestors, Henry Long, Zilpha Long and Moses Long, whom he thinks must have been a child of Henry and Zilpha.
ÒI wonder if some of the tombstones were removed, and not all of them? And are the remains of those buried in the underwater cemetery still there, or were they removed to the other cemetery?"
Thomason says he is certain that there are more graves in Long Cemetery No. 2, completely under the water.
James B. Long III got out and waded in the water around his ancestors' graves. He tenderly swished lake water onto the tombstone names in order to read them better. He fears, he said, that some of his ancestors' stones are on their sides now down in the water, covered with rubble from the riprap and silt.
He said he is considering asking the state or a judge to allow him to use ground-penetrating radar to see if there are remains in the Long cemetery on the hillside. That would help him solve part of the mystery: whether or not the tombstones were simply removed, leaving behind the remains underwater, or having them all replaced on the hillside.
If the remains were removed and re-interred, he said he would then move the three tombstones that are partially submerged to the hillside, and that will be the end of it.
Except for one more thing. He wants to know where the brothers Jackson and Alfred Long are. He said he wants to give them a fitting tombstone, to honour their military record, which he says means a lot to him, since he spent a career with the U.S. Air Force.
However, if he does not find remains in the hillside cemetery after the radar search, he says he will seek a court or state order to have the remains in the watery graves removed by TVA and re-interred on the hillside with other Long family members.
James B. Long III also says he was not aware of any agreements signed by family members, which he says he read for the first time after requesting information from TVA.
For its part, Gil Francis, a TVA spokesman, said TVA will honour its agreement with the Long family, which says the graves are not to be removed from the cemetery.
In the meantime, lake waters gently slap at the three forlorn tombstones. Not far away is the old Long spring house, or what remains of it. Its shape is covered in vines and river trees where a small delta has formed.
And in the evenings, as the sun sets down over Mullens Cove, you can almost hear the distant pipes playing, a haunting tune as the waters bump and push on the old tombstones.
 

Fred Brown is a senior news reporter with the Knoxville News-Sentinel, Tennessee.