LONG TIME GONE - A HOME UNDER WATER ON FALLING WATER RIVER & GRAVES DISINTERRED
LONG - TIME - GONE
By Anna Allison-Burgess
PUTNAM COUNTY
HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF TENNESSEE
Center Hill Lake was created in 1948 by damming the Caney Fork River. Approximately 18,000 acres of farmland, houses, schools, and churches were submerged. While no ‘famous town’ was submerged, imagine the haunted, underwater landscapes of these rural communities. Before flooding, graves from local cemeteries were exhumed and transferred to places like Mount Holly Cemetery in Smithville, Tennessee. A family member was requested to be present during exhumation - I have a copy of one such list from the Robinson Cemetery at the top of Cookeville Boat Dock Hill in Putnam County.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers constructed the Center Hill Dam, inundating the area in the late 1940s.
LIST OF GRAVES MOVED FROM
ROBINSON HILL CEMETERY TO MT. HOLLY
Nancy A. Childress Green Robinson is documented as to attending the disinterment of 7 out of the 9 graves around 1948: graves moved from Robinson Hill Cemetery to
Mt. Holly Cemetery.
Those 7 graves were her father and mother (numbers 7 & 8 on the list); an uncle and aunt (numbers 1 & 4 on the list); her grandmother (number 5 on the list); her brother (number 9 on the list), and a former husband (number 6 on the list). Nancy was born in 1873 and died in 1968 in DeKalb County, TN. She was first married to Harrison Green and secondly to Albert Riley Robinson.
Both men were related to Nancy.
ROBINSON HILL CEMETERY
Located top of the Cookeville Boat Dock Hill - DeKalb County, TN
36.00787, -85.65246
Today Putnam County, Tennessee’s Historical Society shares this beautiful photo of the home of Ammon Asbury Martin and Parzetta Elrod Martin. The home was located in the Falling Water River Community (now underwater - after the building of Center Hill Dam).
Shown in the photo are Ammon Asbury Martin and Parzetta Elrod Martin. Claude Ann Huddleston Burton (Ammon and Parzetta were her Great Grandparents) from Cookeville, Putnam County, Tennessee, is the owner of the photo. The following information is written on the back of the photo – ‘My Great Grandparents home. Across hill from Cookeville Boat Dock. Is now under water. House was on Falling Water River. Home of Ammon and Parzetta Martin.
She went on to explain - in front left of the house was a smokehouse. Falling Water River can barely be seen at the left edge of the smokehouse.’
From UNDER THE LAKE: Williams, Fuson, Baker (2016-page 197) - “The land was at the mouth of Peter Cave Branch of the Falling Water River.” See location on map.
Families living near the Martins are shown on the map below.
Ammon and Parzetta were my 2nd great grandparents.
Honoring the past . . . April 20, 2026
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