Submitted by Richard Welch, who writes:

Rolph Hollow is directly south and a little east of Sugar Loaf Mountain, northeast of Beechburg, east of Mt. Carmel, southwest of Foxport, south of Pleasureville, a horseshoe shaped ridge that often appears on topographic maps as Pea Ridge. Cemetery is off Pleasureville-Mt. Carmel Road; accessible to the public, but most of the hollow is private. Dan Rolph described the location thus: “It is located in northeastern Fleming County, near the little towns of Beechburg, Mt. Carmel and Pleasureville, off what is now called the ‘Black Diamond Pike.’ It sets way back up the holler.” Sometime around 2002 someone took down the fence surrounding the graveyard and allowed cattle to graze there, destroying most of the stones. Elijah’s stone had the inscription: “E. M. died Sept. 21, 1854”. Elijah’s gunsmith shop was across the stream west of the graveyard.

The following was sent to Mr. Welch by Daniel Rolph in 2006.

Just below the cemetery, though no surface evidence is available now, was the site of Elijah Mark’s gunsmith shop. My great-uncle, Barbour R. Rolph, always pointed it out to me that, “that was the spot where Elijah Mark had his gunsmith shop and where I [meaning Barbour Rolph] have found pieces of coke, which came from his smithy that he used to make guns with.” Elijah Mark’s son-in-law, James West, lived in the ‘holler’ as well, prior to 1860, and took him to court. It was always said that a “West lived in the holler who was against slavery and was kicked out of the holler.” That appears to have been Elijah’s son-in-law, who is listed there in the ‘1850 Fleming Co. KY Census’ returns, but is not there in 1860. There was an old slave cabin in the holler, the foundations which my father saw as a child, and one of the many ghost stories told by my family by those who lived there, was the many sightings of the ‘headless horseman’ who was seen near there, purportedly the ghost of a slave who’d had his ‘head beat off with a hammer.’ My great-uncle Barbour Rolph, always told me that “the oldest grave in the cemetery was that of Elijah Mark, the gunsmith.’ He died in 1854. There may have been earlier graves since the ‘holler’ was certainly inhabited long before the Marks got there, but that is what I was personally told.”