The Isham Hall Graveyard is on Indian Creek, 
about 10 miles north of Wise, and three hundred yards northeast 
of where Willie Mullins now lives on US 23. The plot contains about a quarter of an acre, on a steep hill, poorly fenced, 
but otherwise in a fairly well-kept condition. 
I was there about ten o’clock, Monday morning, August 10, 1936. 
Willie Mullins was here with me.

I. H.
DE. 1857
B.1780

This crudely carved inscription is on a rough stone at the head of the grave of Isham Hall. The date of death does not agree with that recorded by the Commissioner and on file at the Wise County courthouse. The Commissioner’s record reads, “Isham Hall, Male, Died Feb. 11, 1858, with consumption. Aged 78 years, Son of Isham and Mary Hall. Birthplace, unknown. Information supplied by Jane Hall, his wife.” The Federal Census of 1850 show that he was born in Franklin County, Virginia. He married Jane (Jennie) Mullins, and was an early settler on Indian Creek. His house stood on the spot where Willie Mullins now lives. 

J. L. 6. 1857
N. M.

The lettering on this stone was hard to make out. It is another rough stone just south of  the Isham Hall grave. At first I thought it was the grave of Jane Hall, Isham’s wife, but court records show she was alive in 1858. It may be the grave of someone of Jane’s Mullins kin, or it may be, as I first thought, the grave of Jane (Mullins) Hall, for if Isham died in 1858 and his stone was inscribed 1857, it would follow that if Jane, his wife, died in 1858, her stone might be inscribed 1857 also.

ELVINA HALL
BORN Aug. 1862
DIED Feb. 2, 1876
Age. 13 YS. 6 MOS. 17 DYS.

JOHNNIE
Son of 
W.B & N.A.
RENFRO
Born  April 7, 1894
Died May 23, 1902

BELLE  HALL
Wife of
J.P. Craft
B. Sept. 4, 1870
Died Feb. 6, 1900

Belle (Hall) Craft was a daughter of Dr. John A. and Sarah (Franklin) Hall.  J.P. (Johnny) Craft is the son of David K. and Sarah (Maggard) Craft, and now lives at Wise where he has operated a shoe shop for several years. 
There are some unmarked graves there, among them the grave of Didema (Dide) Franklin, wife of James Bradley Franklin, and daughter of Isham and Jane (Mullins) Hall. James Bradley Franklin was a son of Byrd and Agnes (Stallard) Franklin. When I was about twelve years old Dide Franklin was a frequent visitor at our home on the head of Crafts Colly Creek, Letcher County, Kentucky. We all called her Aunt Dide. She must have been about seventy years old then. She was tall, slender, beautiful, one of the most lovable characters I ever knew. I remember hearing people talk about her long, slim, beautiful hands. She had a slight cough in winter and would gather and dry poke berries in the fall and eat a certain number of them every night before going to bed, to relieve it. She died at the home of her only daughter, Cat (Catherine) Hall, wife of Ed Hall, near the mouth of Indian Creek. 

There is a long open grave in the Isham Hall Graveyard in which no body was ever buried. It was made for Dr. John A. Hall, who lived at the Isham Hall place, for many years after his father’s death, but the land passed into the hands of a man who objected to him being buried there, so they just left the grave unfilled and dug another in the Jim Hill Graveyard on Bold Camp and buried him there. J.P. (Johnny) Craft, his son in law told me he helped dig both graves.

This record is part of a W.P.A. Project and was compiled 
by James Taylor Adams of Wise, VA.

Return to 
Wise Co