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Early Republic

Ebenezer Cemetery

Pittsburg, Camp County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Ebenezer Cemetery was officially established when Israel B. Rape deeded property for the cemetery in 1857. However, Rape and his wife Sarah are buried in Pittsburg's Rosehill Cemetery. Ebenezer community was founded by the Rapes and several other pioneering families who arrived in the area from Georgia during the 1850s. The oldest known burial in the cemetery is that of infant Pairlie Clementine Bailey, who died in September 1870. A cemetery association was organized in 1971 to preserve and maintain the site. The cemetery has been enlarged through donations of property and now contains two acres. Today, Ebenezer Cemetery remains active and serves as a reminder of an early Camp County settlement. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2009

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

Ebenezer Cemetery marks a small farming community founded in the 1850s by families who came west from Georgia to the pine country of what became Camp County. Israel Rape deeded the land in 1857, though the oldest marked grave belongs to an infant who died in 1870, a reminder of how fragile life on the antebellum frontier could be. A cemetery association organized in 1971 still keeps the two-acre ground active today.

Why it matters

Rural cemeteries like Ebenezer trace the migration of Deep South families into East Texas in the decade before the Civil War, mapping the settlement of a region one homestead at a time.

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Related people

  • ยท Israel B. Rape

Themes & tags

Westward ExpansionFrontier HistoryLandmark

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