The Two Cemeteries

In Jan. 1839, the Rev. Isaac Strickland organized a Methodist Church whose members soon built a log meetinghouse on this site donated by founders of the town of Montgomery. The churchyard came into use for burials during the 1840s. When Pastor G. W. Rabb was dying in 1851, he requested burial beneath the altar of the frame church then being built to replace the log cabin. His grave and a monument commemorating pioneer circuit riders now (1976) mark the original Methodist Church site. The church and the nearby parsonage, which is said to have been the first Methodist parsonage built in Texas, were relocated in 1908. A tabernacle later erected beside the cemetery has also been demolished. A stone in this cemetery commemorates a soldier of the American Revolution who helped settle this county and died here. Churchyard burials included veterans of the War of 1812, the Texas War for Independence, Mexican War, and Civil War, as well as many other pioneers, state and county officials, merchants, ministers, and physicians. In some of the unmarked graves are travelers who died here among strangers. Although a new cemetery opened in 1868, this one was also used until no space remained.