Fleming Memorial Cemetery
McMahan, Caldwell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This graveyard, known as Fleming Memorial Cemetery or Fleming Colored Cemetery, has served the area’s African American community for more than 100 years. John M. Fleming originally buried his deceased slaves here and eventually deeded it to trustees of the colored cemetery. The land was then given to the Fleming Cemetery Association. One of the first persons buried in the cemetery with a legible headstone was Rosanna Fleming, who died in 1888. Documented burials started the same year. In 1950, the Fleming Cemetery Club was organized for cemetery maintenance and to provide a forum for families to pay respect to the deceased. Today, families and descendants of those buried here meet annually to maintain the cemetery.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
For well over a century this ground has held the graves of Caldwell County's African American community. It began on the land of John M. Fleming, who first buried enslaved people here and later deeded the plot to trustees of the colored cemetery; documented burials reach back to 1888, when Rosanna Fleming was laid to rest. In 1950 families organized a cemetery club, and descendants still gather each year to tend the graves.
Why it matters
African American cemeteries like this one are among the most enduring records of communities long left out of official archives, kept alive by the families who maintain them.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · John M. Fleming
- · Rosanna Fleming
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Saint John Colony
Lockhart, TX
In the early 1870s the Rev. John Henry Winn led a group of freedmen and their families from Webberville to a new home south of Lockhart, where fourteen founding families pooled their money to buy some 2,000 acres for a town and farms. First called Winn's Colony, it was renamed Saint John Colony after Winn organized Saint John Missionary Baptist Church in 1873, and grew to roughly a hundred families with stores, a school, a cotton gin, and a grist mill. The post office and school eventually closed, but the churches remain active and descendants of the founders still live there.
Lockhart Vocational High School (Carver HS)
Lockhart, TX
Built in 1923 for Lockhart's African American students—reportedly with materials salvaged from a former white school—this two-story brick and stucco schoolhouse was designed and partly funded through the Rosenwald Foundation, with the district and Black citizens raising the rest. Before it opened, Black children had studied in scattered churches, lodges, and even a funeral parlor. Accredited in 1926 and renamed G.W. Carver High School in 1946, it closed with integration in 1964 and later housed a Head Start program.
Rosenwald School
Luling, TX
Opened in 1925, Luling's Rosenwald School was built with help from the fund Julius Rosenwald established in 1917 to endow schools for African American children across the South. Replacing the earlier Luling Colored School of 1874, its 2.5-acre campus held classrooms for ten grades plus shop, library, and home economics and vocational departments, and under principal P. W. Tucker it earned a strong local reputation until it closed in 1966.
Mt. Olive Baptist Church
Cedar Creek, TX
Freed from slavery only a decade earlier, African American citizens of Bastrop organized Mt. Olive Baptist Church in 1874, first gathering under a brush arbor before building a sanctuary with a split cedar-log pew. The congregation doubled as a school: Elm Grove School shared the frame building from 1897, enrolling nearly ninety pupils. In 1909 the church bought three acres for a new sanctuary and cemetery, adding a dedicated classroom in 1912, and classes continued there until consolidation with Bastrop in 1957.