Buried treasure [veteran's graves] in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Treasure is buried in a handful of National Parks across the United States but many people miss it simply because they don’t know where to look. One woman on a mission in the mountains has found where X marks the spot.

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (WVLT) - Marilyn Childress is trudging through puddles of melted snow, following a trail that looks heavily traveled by animals but rarely trekked by humans. She moves with purpose and determination. She’s made this hike before.

A snowstorm has just hit in Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains National Park and another is forecasted for the next day. The brief lull in weather systems gives way to sun that melts tufts of wet snow from tree limbs, sending them to the forest floor in a symphony of pops and thuds.

If you listen closely, you can hear Marilyn declaring, “The snow is falling all over me!”

The faint trail winds behind the Sugarlands Riding Stable in the heart of the national park. It runs parallel to Newfound Gap Road, a main thoroughfare where drivers rarely realize what they’re passing.

Marilyn knows exactly what’s here. It’s why she came. The trail delivers her to a clearing that’s dotted with old, jagged, moss-covered headstones. Trentham Cemetery: a historic family burial site dating back to the early 1800s.

“A veteran dies twice. Once when they die, and once when their name is never said again,” Marilyn tells us, trying to explain her reason for being in the forest.

Marilyn stands among names that haven’t been spoken in hundreds of years. Until now.

“William Trentham, thank you for your service,” Marilyn says as she squares up to a headstone and salutes. “You actually have to say their name. Say their name so that they’re never forgotten.”

She is among a group of people searching for, verifying, and documenting veteran gravesites within the park.

Joe Emert, a member of the National Park System Advisory Board, Frank March and Bob Lochbaum, co-authors of “A Field Guide to Cemeteries of the Great Smoky Mountains,” Sheila Evans of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Cocke County, Tennessee, Don Casada, a historian with Friends of the Bryson City Cemetery in Swain County, North Carolina, and Frank March, who started mapping out the GPS coordinates of the cemeteries, are all part of that team.

So far, the team has confirmed nearly 215 veterans buried throughout the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and they rely on visitors and volunteers to help them identify more.

Soldiers from the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Spanish-American War, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, all the way through the Korean War and Vietnam War are buried in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, which spans across East Tennessee and into North Carolina. Some of them are purple heart recipients, others are female veterans, all of them are largely forgotten.

“As their family dies off, there’s no one there to remember them...Over in the Elkmont area, there’s Winfred Ownby. He’s a two-time purple heart winner and there’s been thousands of people who go to that cemetery who have no idea what that man’s sacrificed for our country,” Marilyn laments.

Andrew Jackson Bradley, born in 1817 and died in 1891, is among the hundreds of veterans buried inside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

On this cold January day, Marilyn isn’t searching for veteran gravesites. She’s acting in a different capacity, as president of the Veteran’s Heritage Site Foundation, picking up wreaths that volunteers laid for the holidays. In some cases, her team boated across remote lakes and trekked for miles through rough terrain to lay the wreaths in the national park’s long forgotten cemeteries. It’s another chance to say each soldier’s name.

A group of volunteers travel by boat and trek for miles through rugged terrain to reach a remote cemetery where veterans are buried on the North Carolina side of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The hike was nearly 20 miles roundtrip.

To understand what motivates Marilyn, just look inside her closet. She pulls out dress blues, worn during her time in the Navy. As a hospital corpsman who worked in the operating rooms at Navy hospitals, she wasn’t honoring lives. She was saving them.

“It’s almost like you were a caretaker of the living and now you’re a caretaker of the dead,” observed WVLT News Anchor Amanda Hara.

“Yeah, I hadn’t thought of it in that realm. I’ve always wanted to help save people and so, in a way, I’m actually saving these veterans from not ever being remembered,” responded Marilyn.

As Marilyn trudges through the small family cemetery, wiping moss away from markers to read faded names, it becomes clear the saving is personal. Some names mean more.

“Hello grandad.” Marilyn addresses an old headstone, brushing snow from its top. “Hope you enjoyed the snow.”

It marks the burial site of William T. Trentham, her third great-grandfather, born 1793, died 1843.

Trentham served in the 1812 war and was one of the early settlers of the area before it became the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. He was a schoolteacher and justice of the peace.

“I’d seen on paper that I had this third great-grandfather and great-grandmother, but until you see the grave with their name on it, it becomes real to you. Like, ‘Yeah, I do have a great-grandfather and great-grandmother and they are from the Smokies,’ It’s just very exciting.”

Are there other veterans buried in the park Marilyn and her team haven’t found yet? Maybe. A recent hike revealed four possible veterans who weren’t on their list before. Now begins the process of investigating and confirming through pension and Veterans Affairs beneficiary records the military status of those names.

That is a task for another day. For now, Marilyn is hiking out of the mountains, a ring of wreaths hanging from her arms.

She turns to the uneven rows of time-worn headstones, and, with her back to our cameras, says, “Well dudes, you’re all on TV!”

If a soldier dies again when they’re forgotten, then Marilyn has saved these men from a second death, one name after another, after another.

Of the 63 National Parks in the United States, at least eight are home to civilian cemeteries, according to Joe Emert, a member of the National Park System Advisory Board. They include Mammoth Cave National Park in Kentucky, Shenandoah National Park in Virginia, Cuyahoga Valley National Park in Ohio, Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, Indiana Dunes National Park in Indiana, Big Bend National Park in Texas, and Death Valley National Park which straddles California and Nevada.

Emert said as far as he can tell, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the only one that recognizes veterans buried within its boundaries by laying wreaths through Wreaths Across America.

Treasure is buried in a handful of National Parks across the United States but many people miss it simply because they don’t know where to look.

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A veteran dies twice. Once when they die, and once when their name is never said again. Doesn't require a long hike, just a visit to a cemetery, military or otherwise..

“A snowstorm has just hit in Tennessee’s Great Smoky Mountains National Park”

Which means it will melt in large puddles on the trails, then refreeze, making the trails nearly impassible. Bleah. I can hardly wait to go hiking. Tough time of year for it.

As a side note, the park on the North Carolina side lies beyond Fontana Lake. Except for the crossing at Fontana Dam, there are no bridges. Access is by boat.

There are trail heads leading to the interior and summit of the park mountain spine that is the Tennessee/North Carolina border. There are some fantastic back pack loops available.

One actually ends as you hike across the Fontana dam. On one of these loops near the end where there is some level ground, there is a grave yard of another sort. Thet forgotten grave yard contains lots and lots of automobiles dating from the early 30’s. The steel on those old cars was thick, so the hulks are in pretty good condition.

It is a rebuilders dream treasure

We visited Vicksburg National Battlefield in November. The various States each put up very costly and majestic memorials with each name on them for their veterans. The people who did that, around the turn of the 20th C had profound respect for their war dead. I’ve seen the moving war memorials in DC. This was a unique tribute.

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