In a 5,000-square-foot area in the middle of a pasture off Green Mountain Road in Fruitland can be found approximately 60 field stones.
Only one has an easily legible engraving, Mary Maxwell. She was born Feb. 22, 1797, and died March 20, 1866.
When Pat and Calvin Banks bought the property, they found her headstone in the middle of the pasture. It had been removed from the cemetery area.
The couple put the stone back in the cemetery, but they do not know the spot where it originally was located. They placed an electric fence around the wooded property to keep the horses out of the cemetery.
“We cleaned the undergrowth out, but more work needs to be done,” Pat Banks said.
Once cleaned and marked, it may be possible to find where the Mary Maxwell stone should be replaced. It also may show whether the cemetery is divided into sections, one for the white Maxwell family and one for slaves or early black families.
The first Maxwell in Henderson County, Andrew Maxwell Sr., is buried with his two wives, Jane Green and Hannah Wilson, at the Edneyville United Methodist Church Cemetery. He owned land throughout the area, including land on which the cemetery is located. His first land along Clear Creek was obtained in 1803.
His daughter, Mary, is not the Mary in the cemetery. She was born Nov. 4, 1813, and died May 18, 1896.
He did have a daughter-in-law named Mary. His son, James, married Mary Merrell, daughter of John Merrell and Catherine Rhodes. Most genealogists have her born Feb. 6, 1796. Their grave sites have not been located.
The couple’s son, James Mattison Maxwell, served with Edney’s Grays in the Civil War. He died at Drury’s Bluff, Va.
The cemetery is near land owned by free blacks in the 1800s. G.B. Leonard, also known as Green Berry, who was a trustee of the black Green Mountain Baptist Church, lived within one-half mile of the cemetery. There were local black Maxwell families who also lived in the area.
The cemetery is on the county’s GIS layer on the property of the Banks at 392 Piney View Road.