Elijah LEE

                   David Lee dblee@prodigy.net
Fact: Unknow Served at the battle of Vicksburg in Mississippi.
1860 Census- Monroe Co., TN (Dist 14 July, Page 173, DW #372)  Elijah-27, Hannah-21, Charles-4, David C.-2, Eliza F. -1
1900 Census-Lamar Co., Tx (DW #221)- In household-Hester H. Land (son-in-law), Elijah-67, Hannah- 63 #ch-16, living ch-9, Jesse-23
Served in the Battle of Vicksburg in Mississippi in July 1863.  The town was surendered to the federals on July 4.  In 1894, Hannah Ray and Elijah Lee Sr., their children and their families and several relatives came to Lamar County from Monroe County Tennessee.  Most settled around the Slabtown and Hazel Dell areas where they bought land along Hickory Creek.  William Charlie Lee and Marion Giles bought a sawmill and equipment, hauling their lumber to Paris.  Elijah Sr. mostly supervised his adult grandsons in the construcition of homes.  He also bought and sold several tracts of land.  After depleting the supply of lumber, the land was sold for farming.  Rev. David Columbus Lee, a baptist minister, and his family settled several miles east.  After a year, they sold that land and moved to land they owned where the cemetery is now located.  The "Lee Clan" built a Baptist Chruch where David Columbus and his brother-in-law, Isaac Giles, took turns preaching.  By 1901, the family had lost many of its' members, believing the creeks to contain malaria.  On Novermber 7, 1901, Rev. D.C. and wife Nancy deeded part of their land for a Baptist Chruch (LCR Bk. 102 p. 417), naming Elijah Sr., deacon, and William C. Lee, clerk their successors and trustees.  In 1993, Elijah's grave was unmarked.  Buried in Lee Cemetery.  IGI has him listed as born in Monroe Co TN.
1800 census for Monroe Co. TN
Lee Cemetery, sometimes called Hazel Dell or Lee Hazel Dell, is located in the southern tip of the southeast quadrant of the county off Farm Market 1498, near the Slabtown Community.  Turn south off 1498 on to County Road 15900, cemetery is 1/4 mile from main road about 100 feet east of the road across a barbed wire fence.  It is in Block 61 of the Lamar County Road Map produced by American Drafting and Services revised December 1993.  (Part of the graves are inside a chain link fence and the rest are scattered and broken.  A sign reads, 'Private Cemetery founded by Rev. and Mrs. D.C. Lee in 1895.' The cemetery has always been know as the Lee Cemetery.  Because there are 3 Lee Cemeteries in the county, Hazel Dell is added to differentiate between the others.  THe cemetery contains 41 graves including the unknowns.  THe oldest inscribed grave in the cemetery is that of Sammie Lee who died 21 Sep 1895.  The cemetery was recorded by Betsy Mills and Elizabeth House on March 2, 1992.  Supplemental biographies and dates of the deceased were provided by Carmen Lee Burks, Paris, TX., who is a member and genealogical historian of the family the cemetery is named after.  See story of Elijah Lee for further information of the founding of this cemetery.