Concord Cemetery
Troup, Cherokee County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1845, people settled the eastern portion of Texas because of inexpensive land and available water. In 1847, Reverend Richard Martin, an early Concord settler, and Reverend W.P. Henry established the Trinity Presbytery in the area. Both Martin and Henry provided ministers on horseback to Mound Prairie near Palestine to below Crockett. Early settlers worshipped in a brush arbor on the banks of Clear Springs Creek which is now known as Camp Ground Creek. Settlers built a permanent church that also served as a school, but around 1870 the building was destroyed by fire. A new church was built one and one-half miles north on the present location adjacent to the Concord Cemetery. Samuel Johnston donated two acres to the board of school directors to build a public school. in 1891 Wesley and Emma Martin donated acreage for the cemetery, but several graves had already existed. Additional land was deeded in 1933 by Taylor and Francis Martin and in 1967 by Elmer D. Martin. The oldest burials are located in the middle section and marked with tall vertical stones. The oldest documented grave is of William Moses who died in 1878. Many veterans who served in the Civil War, World War I and II, Korea and Vietnam are also buried in the cemetery. Notable veterans include Dr. Simeon Kee, medical corps in Galveston; Reverend Lewis Holcomb, Liken’s Texas Cavalry; and Emerson Draper, Company B, 1874th English BN. The cemetery provides a record of the area’s pioneer families and is still used by their descendants. Before the annual July meeting, it is a tradition to visit the cemetery onSaturday to make sure the graves are clean and in order, and to place flowers on the gravesites. Family members are dedicated to preserving and maintaining the cultural and historical traditions of the cemetery.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Settlers drawn by cheap land and good water reached this part of East Texas in the 1840s, worshipping first in a brush arbor by Camp Ground Creek before building a church that doubled as a school. The Concord Cemetery grew alongside that congregation, its oldest documented grave dating to 1878, and land was deeded to it by the Martin family across the decades. Buried here are veterans of the Civil War, both World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam, tended each year in a cleaning tradition kept by pioneer families' descendants.
Why it matters
The cemetery preserves the layered memory of an East Texas pioneer community and the generations of its sons who served in America's wars from the 1860s onward.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the 1840s, East Texas drew settlers the way much of the young American frontier did — with the promise of cheap, plentiful land and, just as importantly, reliable water. The marker's own opening tells you why people came: inexpensive land and available water, the two things a farming family needed most. Along creeks like Clear Springs, later called Camp Ground Creek, families staked out farms and began the slow work of turning wilderness into a settled community.
Texas had only just become a state in 1845, and this corner of it was raw country. There were no established churches, no schoolhouses, no town squares — those had to be built by the settlers themselves, often in that order of urgency where faith and learning came first. The brush arbor mentioned on the marker, a simple roof of branches over an open-air gathering, was the frontier's answer to a congregation that had arrived before its church.
That pattern — worship first under branches, then a log building that served as both church and school, then a permanent structure and a cemetery beside it — is the classic shape of an American pioneer community taking root. The Concord settlement grew along exactly those lines, one modest institution at a time.
People & events
The community's spiritual life took shape through men on horseback. In 1847, Reverend Richard Martin, an early Concord settler, joined with Reverend W.P. Henry to establish a Presbyterian presence in the area, and the two arranged for ministers to ride a wide circuit — from Mound Prairie near Palestine all the way down toward Crockett. In a country with few roads and fewer churches, the preacher who came to you on horseback was the thread that held scattered families together.
The congregation's home evolved with the community. Early settlers worshipped in the brush arbor on the creek before building a permanent church that doubled as a school — until around 1870, when fire destroyed it. Undeterred, they built anew a mile and a half north, on the site beside the Concord Cemetery, and Samuel Johnston donated two acres so that a public school could stand there too. Faith and schooling kept close company on the same ground.
The cemetery grew alongside the church, and the Martin family's name recurs across its history like a refrain. Wesley and Emma Martin deeded land for the cemetery in 1891, though graves already lay there; more acreage followed from Taylor and Francis Martin in 1933 and Elmer D. Martin in 1967. The oldest documented grave is that of William Moses, who died in 1878, and among the veterans laid to rest here the marker names Dr. Simeon Kee of the medical corps at Galveston, Reverend Lewis Holcomb of Liken's Texas Cavalry, and Emerson Draper of Company B — men whose service spans generations of the nation's wars.
Its place in the American story
A country cemetery like this one is a database of the American experience written in stone. The graves at Concord hold veterans of the Civil War, both World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam — more than a century of the nation's conflicts, all drawn from the sons of a few pioneer families in one small East Texas community. Walk the rows and you are reading the local cost of America's national history.
The cemetery also preserves the institutions-first story of frontier settlement that played out across the whole expanding United States. The sequence here — brush arbor, then a shared church-and-school, then a permanent church and a public school on donated land — is how thousands of American communities bootstrapped civilization out of open country. The Presbyterian ministers riding the circuit between distant settlements embody a religious frontier that reached far ahead of formal towns.
What makes Concord especially valuable is that its story is still living. The descendants of those pioneer families continue to use and tend the cemetery, and the tradition of gathering before the annual July meeting to clean the graves and lay flowers keeps an unbroken line between the first settlers and the present. That continuity turns a burial ground into a genuine record of how an American community remembers itself.
If you visit
Come to Concord Cemetery the way its own families do — slowly, and with attention. Head for the middle section, where the marker tells you the oldest burials lie, marked by tall vertical stones. Those are the graves of the first generation, including the 1878 stone of William Moses, the earliest documented burial. Reading those weathered names is the closest you can come to meeting the settlers who built this place.
Look, too, for the veterans among the rows. The men named on the marker served in conflicts from the Civil War onward, and finding their graves lets you trace the sweep of American military history through a single rural community. There is a particular power in seeing wars you know from textbooks reduced to the names of local sons.
If you visit in summer, you may sense the rhythm the community still keeps: before the annual July meeting, families come out on a Saturday to clean the graves and place flowers. Even on an ordinary day, the care shows — this is a maintained, loved place, not an abandoned one. Treat it gently, take your time among the stones, and let it remind you that a cemetery can be one of the most honest history books a town ever writes.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Richard Martin
- · W.P. Henry
- · William Moses
Themes & tags
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