A Sacred High Place

Located east of the village of Finger in north McNairy County, Tennessee, Mount Carmel Cemetery is one of the oldest burying grounds in the county. It was on this hill that Matthew Ward and his wife Ester first settled in the early 1820s and where the first white child in McNairy County, Hugh Kerby, was born. A cemetery and house of worship were established in the years following. "In this cemetery," noted one twentieth-century writer, "sleep the ashes of the early pioneers and settlers of that section" of McNairy County. A SACRED HIGH PLACE shares the history of the cemetery and meetinghouse along with biographical sketches and photographs of several interesting persons buried there. It also includes an updated census of the cemetery that will be useful to descendants and family researchers.