Lile Family Cemetery
Contributed by Jean Wells
Some transcriptions by Joetta Brown and Brenda Webster.
Photo made sometime late 60s, early 70s by Joetta Brown
Location
The Lile cemetery is located on the old Dr. G.L. Simpson farm, about 8 miles west of Greenville on Highway 189. Turn left just before you get to the main farmhouse, and go up the hill past the barns and work shops. The cemetery is about 1 mile from the highway in a cow pasture. It will be to your left. Gates are locked. Paul Wice now owns the section of the farm where the old cemetery located.
Jean Wells visited the cemetery April 24, 1999. It was overgrown with weeds, briars and small trees.
The way the cemetery looked April 24, 1999. Pictured are Darroll Williams, Jerry Garret, and Wanda Wells - great-grandchildren of Thomas J. Lile. Also pictured is Jerry Garret's wife.
Others on this trip were granddaughters of Thomas J. Lile: Dora Williams of Ohio, Mabel Walker of Indiana, Elva Garrett and Mary Nell Sharber, both of Kentucky. Great-grandchildren were Darrell Williams, Ruth Ann Janes, Jerry Wayne Garrett and wife, Wanda Sue Wells, and Brenda and Barry Webster.
Mable Walker, Elva Garret and Dora Williams (grandaughters of Thomas J. Lile) and Ruth Ann Janes (great-granddaughter of Thomas J. Lile) going into the cemetery April 14, 1999.
History
James Hester Lile was a native of North Carolina. A soldier of the War of 1812, he was at the Battle of New Orleans, and also took part in the Mexican War. He emigrated from North Carolina to Tennessee where he lived several years.
In 1849 Col. James Hester Lile, with his family of six sons and three daughters came to Kentucky and settled in Muhlenberg County on the waters of Pond River and in the neighborhood of George O. Prowse, Jacob Embler, John Swan Atkinson, Richard Thompson and John Owens.
His brother Jackson Lile Jr., his family and Elizabeth Hester Lile came to Kentucky a few years later and settled across Pond River in the Apex neighborhood of Christian County.
Transcription
There is 1 old stone with an unreadable inscription, 1 unreadable funeral home marker and several sandstone markers.
- T.A. Lile
March 26, 1847 - May 5, 1904
Theophilus Allison Lile was born in Bedford County, Tennessee. He was the son of William Thomas and Margaret Short Lile and married 13 August 1868 to Cordelia Ann Randolph. - Robert J. Lile
November 9, 1855 - October 29, 1893
Robert J. Lile was the son of William Thomas and Margaret Short Lile. Robert was a deaf/mute and was never married. - W.J.F. Lile
October 17, 1844 - July 11, 1862
William James Franklin Lile was the son of William Thomas and Margaret Short Lile. He contracted Measles and Typhoid Fever while in the service of the United States military from which he never recovered. He received a disability discharge. - W.T. Lile
August 13, 1817 - July 29, 1860
William Thomas Lile was the son of James Hester and Margaret Lucy Nance Lile. He married Margaret Short about 1843 in Bedford Co., Tennessee. - Margaret L. Lile
January 18, 1823 - January 15, 1901
Inscription: “Jesus has come and borne thee home beyond the stormy blast”
Margaret L. Short was born in Bedford Co., Tennessee, the daughter of William Short and a Miss Bunton. She was the wife of William Thomas Lile. - Thomas J. Lile
August 20, 1853 - January 13, 1923
Thomas Jefferson Lile was the son of William Thomas Lile and Margaret Short Lile. He married 16 October 1884 to Nannie Roma Pace. Nannie was born 1868 and died 1893, the daughter of William Ledfeter and Julia Ann Sherrod Murphy Pace. She is buried at the Murphy Cemetery in Muhlenberg Co., Kentucky. - M.J. Lile
January 24, 1822 - July 10, 1889
Mark J. Lile was the son of James Hester and Margaret Lucy Nance Lile. Mark never married. - Sarah Elizabeth Lile
Sally was the daughter of James Hester and Margaret Lucy Nance Lile. She never married, but helped raise her nephew's four children after his wife died.
Information from death certificate: LILE, Sarah E. 4 April 1830 - 25 March 1912
Source: Kentucky Death Certificate #8232, copy of Sarah E. Lile's will
Read Sarah Elizabeth Lile's Will - Rachel Ellen Lile
Rachel was born in Kentucky, the daughter of Henry Farley and Mary Elizabeth Keith Knight, and wife of Joseph McDonald Lile, is believed to be the last person buried in this cemetery.
Condition of Tombstone: All we could read on this stone was “Lile” and “died ____ June”. Rachel Ellen is only one in the Muhlenberg County Cemetery book listing that died in the month of June.
Information from death certificate: LILE, Rachel Ellen 22 June 1854 - 28 June 1949
Source: Kentucky Death Certificate 12747 - Mary J. Lile
Daughter of James Hester and Margaret Lucy Nance Lile, never married, but lived with her nephew and her sister Sarah E. Lile and helped raise her nephew's four children.
Information from death certificate: LILE, Mary J. 18 January 1835 - 23 September 1913
Source: Kentucky Death Certificate 25173, copy of Mary J. Lile's will
Read Mary J. Lile's Will
The following have been identified from family records and death certificates:
- LILE, James Deward, 18 August 1929 - 29 December 1929, son of James Slaton and Amanda Birdie Knight Lile
- LILE, James Hester, 12 October 1794 Granville Co., North Carolina - died 18 March 1855; son of William Jackson Lile Sr. and Elizabeth Hester Lile; Married Margaret Lucy Nance 7 November 1816 Granville Co., North Carolina.
- LILE, Margaret Lucy, born 16 January 1795 in Virginia, died after 1870, Wife of James Hester Lile
- LILE, Joseph McDonald, 14 September 1832 - 25 October 1911; Born Bedford Co., Tennessee, son of James Hester and Margaret Lucy Nance Lile; Married 4 November 1874 to Rachel Ellen Knight
Source: Kentucky Death Certificate 26783 & Muhlenberg Co., Kentucky Marriage Book 9 Page 97 - LILE, Cordelia Ann, 3 February 1845 - 7 December 1933, daughter of Ashford and Geraldine Oats Randolph; Wife of Theophilus Allison Lile.
- LILE, Clara B., born 17 July 1837, died after 1860 (she is listed in the 1860 census but not in the 1870 census), daughter of James Hester and Margaret Lucy Nance Lile; Clara never married.
- LILE, Robert J., 6 May 1820 - 27 October 1883, son of James Hester and Margaret Lucy Nance Lile; Married 16 February 1857 to Sarah Lee Keith, daughter of Alexander and Ellen Wadley Keith of Christian Co., formerly of Bedford Co., Tennessee.