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Smith Cemetery, 72-2 Summary Report, page 11

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 Smith Cemetery (72-2), Redstone Arsenal, Madison County, Alabama, July 2002. The remains of the box tomb are thought to be most likely that for either Hughy Smith or his wife, who preceded him in deadi. Hughy was the first private owner of die land where the cemetery is located, having purchased it from the government 25 March 1818. Hughy appears at age 67 (b. SC) in the 1850 Madison County census with only a son (Stanhope, age 24, b. AL) in die household with him. The 1840 census of Madison Co. shows Hughy as age 50-60 with a wife in the same age bracket. They had in the household one male child 20-30 and another 15-20. The household included 20 male slaves and 21 female slaves. The slaves are thought to be buried in the cemetery that is about 350 yards north of this Smith family cemetery, which is on a small hill overlooking what was once die Whitesburg-Triana Road but is now part of Buxton Road. The family mansion probably stood just west of the cemetery, on the higher ground, affording a more majestic overview of the surroundings. The 1840 census lists immediate neighbors as the families of Pleasant S. Austin, John Timmons, and Thomas Lipscomb. By the time of the 1875 map of the area, H. W. Grantland was shown as owning the land around die Smith cemeteries. The box tomb of large rocks was typical of burials of wealthy people in the area in the early 1800s, but the practice had been discontinued by the 1860s. The single boulder-covered grave could be that of Hughy, but it is perhaps more likely for Hughy's wife, Elizabeth (“Betsy”) E. Smith. She preceded him in death, dying on December 31, 1846, per the obituary in the Southern Advocate (a newspaper published in Huntsville). Hughy would have been wealthy enough to provide such a boulder-covered grave. 11 - (2624)    

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