Last updated: April 28, 2026
- Type: Rural unincorporated community
- Location: North of Whitwell on the old Dunlap Highway, about a mile south of the Marion–Sequatchie county line
- Anchors: Red Hill community church and Red Hill Cemetery
- Cemetery size: 1,343 memorials documented at Find a Grave; one of the larger 19th- and 20th-century rural cemeteries in the upper county
- Federal post office: None of record
Red Hill is a small unincorporated community on the upper-Sequatchie-Valley floor north of Whitwell, just inside the Marion County boundary with Sequatchie County. The community has no federal post office in the historical record and no commercial or civic infrastructure beyond a community church and the substantial cemetery alongside it. What gives the place its present-day identity is the Red Hill Cemetery, with 1,343 memorials documented through Find a Grave, making it one of the larger rural cemeteries in the upper county and the principal record of Red Hill's 19th- and 20th-century population.
Setting
Red Hill sits on the upper Sequatchie Valley floor on the old Dunlap Highway, the pre-modern road grade that carried valley traffic between Whitwell and Dunlap, the seat of Sequatchie County to the north. Modern TN-28 follows roughly the same corridor a short distance away. The community proper sits about a mile south of the Marion–Sequatchie line, on a gentle rise on the valley floor that gave the place its name. The Cumberland Plateau wall is to the west and the long ridge separating the Sequatchie from the Tennessee River Gorge is to the east; the upper Sequatchie River meanders through the valley floor a short distance from the church and cemetery.
The community church and cemetery
Red Hill community church and the cemetery alongside it are the only continuously-active institutions on the site. The church is a small frame country church of the kind common across the upper Sequatchie Valley, serving a few dozen families through the 20th century and into the present. The Red Hill Cemetery sits beside the church and carries the bulk of the community's documentary footprint. With 1,343 memorials documented at Find a Grave, the cemetery holds graves from at least the late 19th century forward and is among the larger rural cemeteries in the upper county. Surnames well-attested in the cemetery include the families that made up the upper-valley agricultural community: farmers, small-merchant families, and 20th-century coal-and-foundry workers tied to the Whitwell and Victoria operations a few miles to the south.
The TNGenWeb Marion County cemetery transcription effort preserves a partial transcription of Red Hill at redhillcem.html; more complete transcriptions are at Find a Grave and BillionGraves. The cemetery is on the longer list of TNGenWeb's 24 surveyed Marion County cemeteries, distinct from the smaller list of 11 cemeteries the South Pittsburg Historic Preservation Society catalogs for the southern end of the county.
Why the place is named Red Hill
The name comes from the soil. The gentle rise the church and cemetery sit on shows the red Cumberland-Plateau-runoff iron-bearing clay characteristic of the upper Sequatchie Valley floor. “Red Hill” placenames are common across the southern Appalachian highlands wherever this soil signature is locally distinct, and the Marion County version is one of dozens of Red Hills across Tennessee and Kentucky named the same way. No federal Red Hill post office exists in the Marion County register, so the name was always informal community usage rather than postal-system ratification.
Present day
Red Hill remains a small named place on present-day road and weather maps, with the community church and cemetery as its visible anchors. The community has no separate civic infrastructure; mail is served through Whitwell. The cemetery is still in active use; the church holds regular services; and the area has resisted the suburban residential development that has reshaped much of the upper county along TN-28. Property listings near Red Hill Cemetery and Red Hill Church appear regularly in regional real-estate databases under the Whitwell ZIP, but the community's identity is anchored in its institutional continuity rather than in any residential growth.
Related
Whitwell →
Other named places in Marion County →
Cheekville (the pre-1877 name for Whitwell) →
Religious history of Marion County →
Sources
- TNGenWeb Marion County — Red Hill Cemetery (partial transcription)
- Find a Grave — Red Hill Cemetery (Whitwell)
- BillionGraves — Red Hill Cemetery, Whitwell, Marion, Tennessee
- TNGenWeb Marion County — Cemeteries index (24 surveyed cemeteries)
- HometownLocator — Marion County, TN cities, towns, neighborhoods (Red Hill listing)