Directions: From Dickerson Pike (Hwy 31W), go north/west on Robert Cartwright Drive, opposite Forest Lawn Cemetery. Access is from the west end of the parking lot in the apartment complex named "The Retreat at Dry Creek Farms." The cemetery is visible on a hill, about 100 yards north of Building 12.

Note: There is no access from Old Dickerson Pike.

This cemetery should not be confused with the Jacob Cartwright Cemetery on Old Dickerson Pike.



The following description is from "Tennessee Records: Tombstone Inscriptions and Manuscripts" (published 1933):



"Near Goodlettsville, Tenn., Davidson County

The Robert Cartwright burial ground is located about ten miles from Nashville on the Dickinson Road, overlooking the old road, and about one-quarter of a mile from the new highway on Dry Creek.



In this plot is the grave of Robert Cartwright, a native of Princess Anne County, VA, after serving his country in various civil and military capacities, both in Virginia and North Carolina joined the expedition which left Fort Patrick Henry on the Holston River, in December, 1779, and successfully navigated the Tennessee River to its mouth and the Cumberland River as far as the present site of Nashville, arriving at the latter place in April, 1780, after one of the most perilous voyages in the annals of history.



The land, of which this graveyard forms part, was granted Robert Cartwright by the State of North Carolina as a "Preemption," the legislature of that state, in 1782, having passed a bill granting rights of preemption of 640 acres to each family, or head of family, and every single man of twenty-one years of age or upwards on the CumberIand who were settled on these lands before the first day of June, 1780.



Another graveyard is located about half a mile distant On the old turnpike on land which was inherited by Robert Cartwright's son, Jacob Cartwright. Here are buried Jacob Cartwright, his wife Patience Hobdy Cartwright, and many of their descendants."