Biloxi Community
Bleakwood, Newton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Settlement of this area began in the early 19th Century, as people moved into Texas from the southern United States. A post office was established in 1849, and continued settlement resulted in the building of homes, businesses, schools, and churches. Many former slaves established homes here following the Civil War. Biloxi Colored Methodist Episcopal (C.M.E.) Church began meeting informally in 1870, and Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church began in 1921. Biloxi Evergreen Cemetery dates to the 1880s. Biloxi continues to be an important part of Newton County.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Settlement of the Biloxi area began in the early 19th century as families moved into Texas from the southern states, and a post office opened in 1849. After the Civil War, many formerly enslaved people established homes here, forming a lasting community. Congregations including Biloxi C.M.E. Church, organized in 1870, and Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church, begun in 1921, along with a cemetery dating to the 1880s, anchored the settlement.
Why it matters
Biloxi reflects the way freedpeople built enduring communities of their own after emancipation, rooted in land, church, and family in the piney woods of East Texas.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related events
- · Civil War
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Magnolia Springs Cemetery
Kirbyville, TX
Founded around 1824 as "Pinetucky" by the Wright brothers and renamed Magnolia Springs when its post office opened in 1850, this East Texas community grew up around its churches and this shared burial ground. The earliest known grave dates to 1858, and in 1860 the Fellowship Baptist Church bought land here for worship and burials. In 1902 the graveyard grew when the Black congregation of Springhill Church purchased adjoining acreage, and today more than 900 marked and unmarked graves hold the community's early preachers, physicians, and planters.
Cedar Grove Community
Burkeville, TX
After the Civil War, a group of freedmen founded the Cedar Grove community here to take advantage of the area's strong cotton market, naming it for the cedars they cut for lumber. At its heart stood the Cedar Grove Community Church, organized with help from the Spears Chapel congregation, which also housed the community's first school. River-transport losses in the 1880s, followed by disease and floods, drove the settlement's decline, leaving the church and cemetery as its enduring markers.
Campground Cemetery
Jasper, TX
Adam Byerly came to Texas from South Carolina in 1834 and received a Mexican land grant on Sandy Creek, where the site became a Methodist camp meeting ground known as Byerly Campground. Byerly sold ten acres to the church in 1843, and a cemetery for the area's African American residents took shape to the south. Its earliest marked grave is that of Tom Limbrick (1827–1908), and many former slaves, community leaders, and veterans rest here. Ties with nearby Armstrong C.M.E. Church give the site its alternate name, Armstrong Campground Cemetery.
Beech Creek Baptist Church
Beech Creek, TX
Georgia native James G. Collier brought his family to the Beech Creek community in 1852 and built the area's first sawmill; three years later, eight charter members organized this Baptist church in his home. Remarkably for its time and place, the congregation welcomed both Anglo and African American members, and in 1867 it ordained Henry Gainer, a Black man, as minister. From baptisms in nearby creeks to its first sanctuary on land Collier donated in 1892, the church grew alongside the community it served.