October 2017
theview
.com
Page 7
Holy Innocents Church & Cemetery
By Steve Smith, Special to THE VIEW 38002
The Holy Innocents Cemetery was established in 1881 with the burial of
a young child. The church was built on the property in 1882. In 1883,
Ephraim Edward and Sarah Louisa Butler Greenlee deeded the one-acre lot
with the church building and the graveyard to the “Convention of the
Protestant Episcopal Church in the Diocese of Tennessee,” reserving the
right for themselves and their family to be buried on the property.
Members of the some of the founding families of Arlington are buried in
the Holy Innocents Cemetery. The last burial in the cemetery occurred in
1987. The church building was dismantled in 1929, and some of the lumber
was used to improve other buildings in the community.
In 2003, the Episcopal Diocese of West Tennessee deeded the property
to the Arlington Chapter of the Association for the Preservation of
Tennessee Antiquities. The Holy Innocents Cemetery and Meditation
Garden is located on Campbell Street.
On September 17th, the APTA and The West Tennessee Dioceses held
an official dedication of the open-air replica of the original church that stood
in that spot in the 1880’s to the town of Arlington.
Photos clockwise from above:
Guests congregate in the open-
air church after the dedication
service; an angel presides over
the meditation garden; Piper
Gary Goldsmith lent a solemn
tone to the dedication service;
the front of the church features
a triple cross design; Canon
Zabron Davis represented the
Episcopal Diocese of West
Tennessee. Staff Photos.