Bailey Slave Cemetery Traditional Cache

As of 9:19 am on 5-31-2017, exactly 2 months after the beginning of the 2017 Challenge, all 100 of the LBL Heritage Geocache 2017 Challenge Coins have been given out to the successful geocachers who brought in their 6 tree tags. Thank you to everyone for making this year’s challenge a great success! We hope that you will continue to enjoy all that the Land Between The Lakes has to offer.

This cemetery is where the slaves of the Bailey family were buried. The Baileys were a prominent farming family in the Blue Springs community between the rivers and also operated a ferry across the Tennessee River. In 1840 John T. Bailey owned three slaves: a man, woman, and child. They helped operated the farm and most likely ran the ferry. Slaves operating ferries was a common practice at the time. It is likely that this little family and their relatives and descendants are buried here. There are a total of eight known graves in this cemetery which was recently rediscovered thanks to analysis of historical documents. None of the graves are marked, but grave depressions are still visible. Periwinkle vines cover and mark the location of this cemetery.

This cache is located near the Cemetery. Please be respectful. Please keep your impacts to cultural remains to a minimum.  You are looking for a gray colored watertight dry box (7” x 8” x 4”).  Sign the logbook and collect one of the numbered aluminum tree tags.  After you collect a tree tag from each of the 6 geocache sites, redeem them for a unique and distinctive challenge coin award at the LBL Golden Pond Visitor Center.