Wolf River Cemetery

Pall Mall is a small place with an outsized post office record. John M. Clemens, father of Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain), served as postmaster there from April 1832 to May 1835, before he moved the family to Missouri. Eighty-five years later, Rosier Pile, York's friend and pastor, held the same office and handed York his draft notice in 1917. The valley's graves, from the earliest settlers to the state's most famous soldier, sit near the community whose mail carried both men's histories.

What the plaque says

Wolf River Cemetery This cemetery was established in the early 1800's and was originally called Mt. Pleasant Burying Ground. The oldest known grave of approximately 600 burials is Charles Paul, 1826. Wolf River's first settler, Conrad "Coonrod" Pile, is buried in an unusual above-ground grave. Herein is the burial site of Sgt. Alvin C. York, most decorated soldier of World War I and a descendant of the valley's first settler.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sgt. Alvin C. York State Historic Park — 0.4 mi
  The Wolf River valley farm, gristmill and grave of Alvin York, the conscientious objector turned Medal of Honor soldier, now a National Historic Landmark district.
• Pickett CCC Memorial State Park — 8.7 mi
  A Civilian Conservation Corps park of sandstone buildings, natural bridges and rock shelters beside the Big South Fork, and an International Dark Sky Park.
• Cordell Hull Birthplace and Museum State Park — 13 mi
  A replica of the log cabin where the secretary of state and Nobel laureate was born in 1871, with a museum of his belongings, in Pickett County's hills.
• Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area at Bandy Creek — 15 mi
  The Tennessee gateway to a 125,000-acre Cumberland Plateau river gorge, from the Bandy Creek Visitor Center near Oneida, with Twin Arches and the old No Business country.

More markers nearby

• Alvin C. York — 7.0 mi
• Mark Twain Spring — 8.2 mi
• The Burning of Hale's Mill — 10 mi
• "Tennessee Lead" — 12 mi