Stolen grave markers lead back to 19th-century story of a husband, wife in Manchester, Tenn.

photo These foot stones were taken from the uninhabited Old Redden Cemetery grave site owned by Steve Stone, about 100 feet away from the grave of Samuel Elliott. A Confederate veteran and Coffee County farmer, Elliott died in 1888. His tombstone was stolen from the cemetery in Manchester, Tenn., and found in a Spearfish, S.D., alleyway. The matching tombstone marking the grave of Elliott's wife, Mary, is still missing.
photo Tombstone of S.J. Elliott (Samuel Jiles Elliott), a Confederate veteran and Coffee County farmer who died in 1888. His tombstone was stolen from the Old Redden Cemetery in Manchester, Tenn., and found in a Spearfish, S.D., alleyway. The foot stones from the uninhabited grave site owned by Steve Stone, about 100 feet away from Elliott's grave, were also taken. The matching tombstone marking the grave of Elliott's wife, Mary, is still missing.
photo Samuel Jiles Elliott
photo The markers on the grave sites of Samuel J. and Mary Elliott at the Old Redden Cemetery in Coffee County, Tenn., were stolen sometime in July, authorities say. Samuel's was found in August in Spearfish, S.D. Mary's is still missing.
photo Coffee County Sheriff's Office investigator Bill Marcom talks about the August discovery in Spearfish, S.D., of the 126-year-old tombstone belonging to Samuel Jiles Elliott that was stolen from the Old Redden Cemetery near Manchester, Tenn., in July. The matching marker for the grave of Elliott's wife, Mary, is still missing.

TO HELPAnyone with information about the theft and vandalism of tombstones, including the still missing marker for Mary Elliott, at the Old Redden's Cemetery on Blanton Chapel Road west of Manchester, Tenn., should contact investigator Bill Marcom with the Coffee County Sheriff's Office at 931-728-3591.Mary Elliott's tombstone reads:M.A. ElliottBorn May 201843Died May 201885WE SHAL MEET AGAINSource: www.findagrave.com

MANCHESTER, Tenn. - A mystery that unfolded more than 1,000 miles from a remote cemetery in Coffee County, has led back to a Confederate soldier who survived the war and returned to farm the pastoral countryside west of Manchester like his father.

Samuel Jiles Elliott married his bride, Mary, on May 26, 1863. But the Civil War raged, and Elliott enlisted in the Confederate Army that same year. He was 21.

Elliott served as a private in Capt. G.W. Robinson's Company E of the Tennessee Volunteers. Then he returned to the land and the woman he loved.

They lived out their lives together until Mary died in 1885 -- on her 42nd birthday.

Elliott had her tombstone inscribed with the epitaph, "We shal meet again."

The same words were put on his own tombstone when he died three years later, at age 45.

Those tombstones sat side by side on the couple's graves for well over a century under the sprawling boughs of a massive cedar tree in Old Redden's Cemetery.

Until this year.

The Elliott couple's tombstones were taken from their grave sites sometime over the summer, probably in June or July, Coffee County Sheriff's Office investigator Bill Marcom said Wednesday.

Inexplicably, Samuel's tombstone was found in August, 1,120 miles away in Spearfish, S.D., a town of 11,000 or so in the Black Hills of western South Dakota. The tombstone -- and two foot stones from a grave site about 100 feet from the Elliotts' final resting place -- was found in an alleyway off of State Street following the famous Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in the neighboring town, Spearfish officials say.

Karla Weber, the cemetery sexton at city-owned Rose Hill Cemetery in Spearfish, said it took just a few minutes to find the cemetery where Samuel Elliott's marker had come from once she and Spearfish police joined forces and poked around on the Internet.

After a search of cemetery records in local and nearby communities, the website www.findagrave.com provided a link to a photo and location of the marker within 15 minutes, Weber said Thursday.

"We all just stood there and stared at my computer, stunned," she said.

But the mystery wasn't over yet -- Mary's marker was still missing.

•••

Initially, no one even knew that the Elliotts' grave markers had been taken.

Ronald England, one of two caretakers at the Old Redden's Cemetery in Coffee County, filed a theft report in July, after it was discovered that the two foot stones were missing and that the cemetery's sign had been vandalized.

England, 73, lives a couple miles away from the cemetery on a road named for his family, some of whom are buried at the graveyard he helps tend.

"The secretary [of the cemetery committee] said somebody called her and told her what was missing and she called me, and I went down there and looked at it and didn't even see the others [the Elliotts' tombstones] missing until I went up and reported it to the sheriff's department that we'd had a vandalism," England said.

"At the time the report was made, we didn't even know the headstones were gone," Marcom said. The foot stones were the only missing items noted at the time.

England noted that the theft happened as the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival was concluding.

"It's such a secluded place that you have so many people go out there and drink and make love and whatever they do out there," he said, "and I figured somebody just picked it up and carried it off."

England said he spoke a few weeks later with the sheriff's office and was told of the tombstone's discovery 1,100 miles away, a baffling distance to haul such a thing.

"It just makes one wonder. What an odd thing to steal -- it's just odd," Coffee County Historical Society member Beverly Vetter said as she listened to discussion about the missing markers.

•••

Spearfish authorities set about returning Samuel Elliott's marker to Manchester.

Marcom said Spearfish police insured the marker and foot stones and returned them via the U.S. Postal Service. But the headstone arrived in Manchester in August in two pieces and the postal service said the insurance wouldn't cover the loss, he said.

Marcom said he's going to repair and reinstall the marker himself over the winter.

Now, officials in Manchester as well as Spearfish hope to see Mary Elliott's headstone returned to its rightful place beside her husband's.

Weber said she hopes that whoever took Samuel Elliott's marker will take Mary Elliott's marker back to Coffee County.

"I know Mrs. Elliott's has to be somewhere between here and there," she said.

Contact staff writer Ben Benton at bbenton@timesfreepress.com, twitter.com/BenBenton, www.facebook.com/ben.benton1 or 423-757-6569.


Editor's Note: This story was updated at 1 p.m. October 7 to reflect that the location is actually west of Manchester, not east.

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