Old Gray Cemetery - Notable Interments

Notable Interments

For years, visitors to Old Gray have commented on the various "adversaries" buried within sight of one another. Among the most well-known of these are Knoxville businessman Joseph Alexander Mabry, Jr., his son Joseph Alexander Mabry III, and Mechanics' National Bank president Thomas O'Connor, all three of whom were killed in an 1882 shootout discussed in Mark Twain's Life on the Mississippi. The family plots of two bitter Civil War rivals, pro-Unionist William "Parson" Brownlow and pro-secessionist John Hervey Crozier, are separated only by a roadway. Two other Civil War adversaries, Union Army major Eldad Cicero Camp and Confederate colonel Henry Ashby, are also buried at Old Gray, the latter having been killed in a scuffle with Camp in downtown Knoxville in 1868.

Cornelius Coffin Williams (1879–1957), father of playwright Tennessee Williams, is buried in the cemetery, and his funeral is discussed in Williams's "The Man in The Overstuffed Chair." Eliza Boond Hodgson (1810–1870), mother of author Frances Hodgson Burnett, is also buried at Old Gray, her grave being one of the few surviving relicts of Burnett's years in the city. Author Peter Taylor mentions a 1916 funeral at a "Knoxville cemetery" for a fictitious politician in his novel, In the Tennessee Country, which may be an allusion to the lavish funeral of his grandfather, Governor Robert Love Taylor, which took place at Old Gray in 1912.

• Alexander O. Anderson (1794–1869), U.S. senator
• Henry Ashby (1836–1868), Confederate colonel
• Richard W. Austin (1857–1919), U.S. congressman
• Lloyd Branson (1853–1925), Knoxville artist
• William G. "Parson" Brownlow (1805–1877), Tennessee governor and U.S. senator, editor of the Knoxville Whig
• Eldad Cicero Camp (1839–1920), Knoxville businessman, founder of the Coal Creek Coal Company
• William Caswell (1846–1926), Confederate general
• William Montgomery Churchwell (1826–1862), U.S. congressman, president of the failed Bank of East Tennessee in the 1850s
• John Hervey Crozier (1812–1889), U.S. congressman
• Perez Dickinson (1813–1901), Knoxville businessman, founder of the city's Board of Trade
• Lizzie Crozier French (1851–1926), women's suffragist leader, founder of Knoxville's Ossoli Circle
• William Heiskell (1788–1871), post-Civil War Speaker of the Tennessee House of Representatives
• Leonidas Houk (1836–1891), U.S. congressman

• Thomas William Humes (1815–1892), president of East Tennessee University, oversaw school's transition into the University of Tennessee
• Peter Kern (1835–1907), Mayor of Knoxville and founder of Kern's Bakery
• Joseph Knaffl (1861–1938), photographer
• Joseph Alexander Mabry, Jr. (1826–1882), Knoxville businessman, builder of Mabry-Hazen House, helped establish Market Square (his name appears as "Joseph Alexander Mabry, Sr." on his monument)
• Horace Maynard (1814–1882), U.S. congressman and postmaster general
• Charles McClung (1761–1835), pioneer surveyor who laid out Knoxville in the 1790s; grave moved here by his descendants in 1904
• Lee McClung (1870–1914), Yale football standout and 22nd Treasurer of the United States
• Charles McClung McGhee (1828–1907), Knoxville railroad magnate, founder of Lawson McGhee Library
• Frank Seymour Mead (1864–1936), Knoxville businessman, founder of Republic Marble Company
• Thomas A. R. Nelson (1812–1873), U.S. congressman
• William Rule (1839–1928), Knoxville mayor, founder of the Knoxville Journal
• Edward J. Sanford (1831–1902), Knoxville businessman
• William Henry Sneed (1812–1869), U.S. congressman
• Peter Staub (1827–1904), Knoxville mayor and businessman, established Staub's Theater, Knoxville's first opera house
• Oliver Perry Temple (1820–1907), attorney, judge, and economic promoter
• Jacob Montgomery Thornburgh (1837–1890), U.S. congressman
• Charles McGhee Tyson (1889–1918), World War I pilot who was shot down and killed while patrolling the North Sea in 1918 and later became the namesake of McGhee Tyson Airport
• Lawrence Tyson (1861–1929), World War I general and U.S. senator.
• Catherine Wiley (1879–1958), Knoxville artist
• Joseph Lanier Williams (1810–1865), U.S. congressman.