The only gravestone visible in the Gaines burial plot is that of General Edmund Pendleton Gaines. Biographies of General Gaines state that he is buried next to his second wife Barbara Blount Gaines.

The only gravestone visible in the Gaines burial plot is that of General Edmund Pendleton Gaines. Biographies of General Gaines state that he is buried next to his second wife Barbara Blount Gaines.

Old picture post card of the Blount home (1793) where the wedding of Barbara Blount and Edmund Pendleton Gaines took place in 1815, Knoxville, Tennessee.

Barbara Blount Gaines was the daughter of William Blount, governor of the Southwest Territory (now Tennessee) and U.S. Senator from Tennessee. She became the second wife of Gen. Edmund Pendleton Gaines four years after the death of his first wife, Frances Toulmin.

General Gaines' grave has long been marked in Church Street Cemetery, Mobile. Biographies state that his body was buried beside Barbara at the direction of his third wife, Myra Clark Gaines. As Barbara's death notice states, she died at the home of her husband's nephew, James Gaines Lyon in Mobile. He was the brother of the Hon. Francis Strother Lyon. There likely was a marker originally and possibly it has sunken unless destroyed by vandals.

The (Cleveland, Ohio) Plaindealer, Dec. 3, 1836, p. 31: "Mrs. Barbara Blount Gaines, wife of Major General Edward (sic) P. Gaines, Died on the 29th of last month, at the residence of James G. Lyon, Esq., in Mobile, Alabama. For some time past she had been in a very low state of Health, and at intervals her life has been despaired of.”


Gen. E.P. Gaines' grave is shown as being in the "LIPSCOMB PLOT" on old maps, though no Lipscomb grave is identified here. This plot is thought to have been owned by Abner Smith Lipscomb, brother-in-law of Col. George Strother Gaines, the brother of Gen. Edmund Pendleton Gaines and in whose office at St. Stephens Francis Strother Lyon began his career. Francis Strother Lyon and his brother James Gaines Lyon came from N.C. to Alabama and lived with their uncles and with Abner Smith Lipscomb when they were young men. Abner Smith Lipscomb married Elizabeth Gaines whose sister Ann married their cousin Col. George Strother Gaines of Demopolis and Mobile. A brother of Abner S. Lipscomb was Nathan Lipscomb, the great-great-grandfather of Archbishop Oscar Hugh Lipscomb, Jr. A sister of Abner Smith Lipscomb and Nathan Lipscomb was Elizabeth Lipscomb who married Rev. William Wier who passed through Mobile and whose sons lived here. According to their great-great-grandson, Stuart Withrow Wier of Mobile, an old family letter indicates that Abner Smith Lipscomb was actually buried here at Church Street Cemetery or thought to be buried here rather than in Texas where his grave or supposed grave has long been enshrined. Stuart Wier says his research was never able to verify the information but believed the actual Lipscomb grave was unmarked and lying between the Hellen plot (on the west side of the cemetery) and the brick wall. This belief that A.S. Lipscomb might be buried here may have originated simply from the fact that he owned a plot at Church Street Cemetery and may have had children or other relatives buried there.

The location of the grave of General Gaines' first wife, Frances Toulmin Gaines, is uncertain.