Neglect
Many of the cemeteries inside Great Smoky Mountains National Park are maintained by organizations such as the Cades Cove Preservation Association or the North Shore Cemetery Association. We have seen the results of these efforts up close and can assure you these people work very hard. Others are maintained by families and descendants of those buried within.
Sadly, other Smoky Mountain cemeteries receive no such privatized care. The National Park Service has a maintenance schedule wherein they visit the known cemeteries on a regular cycle to remove debris, clear brush and cut away fallen trees and limbs. This maintenance is performed by the Park Service trail crews before the main hiking season gets underway. Most of these clean-ups are scheduled yearly, although some of the more remote gravesites may not be tended this often, if ever. Even if a cemetery is cleaned up in the spring, by the end of the season the weeds and underbrush will have taken over again.
The National Park Service simply does not have the budget nor the manpower to tend these graves more often, although we have heard reports from more than one source that those doing the work do so with dignity and respect.
We present here examples of a few of these cemeteries that do not have benefit of private maintenance. The displaced families who were forced to abandon these cemeteries when their land was purchased to create the National Park would no doubt be saddened to know the legacy of their loved ones.
