Ford Chapel, Cemetery, and School
Bon Wier, Newton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The family of John H. and Margaret Ford came to Texas prior to 1880. Establishing farms and homes, the family helped settle this area of Newton County. A community cemetery was begun on the land of J. D. and Ida J. Ford. Although the cemetery contains some unmarked graves, the earliest documented burial is that of Promontory Inez Ford (1877-1880), daughter of J. D. and Ida Ford. Originally kept as a scraped earth cemetery, the graveyard was later planted with grass. Northwest of the cemetery is the site of the Ford Community School. Organized in 1893, the school was housed in a one-room log building. It became a part of the Newton Independent School District in 1929-30, and area students traveled to Newton for classes. A wooden frame structure was erected northeast of the cemetery in 1910 to serve as a place of worship for the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Although regular worship services were discontinued in the 1930s, the chapel remained on its original site. The Ford Chapel and Cemetery Association, organized in 1961, maintains the cemetery as well as the chapel and school site. (1988)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Ford family arrived in the piney woods of Newton County before 1880 and, over a generation, planted the three institutions a frontier community needed most. A cemetery took shape on J.D. and Ida Ford's land, its earliest documented grave that of their three-year-old daughter in 1880; a one-room log school opened in 1893; and a frame Methodist chapel rose in 1910. Though regular worship ended in the 1930s and the school folded into Newton's district by 1930, descendants formed an association in 1961 to keep the sites tended.
Why it matters
The clustered chapel, cemetery, and school tell the whole life cycle of a Southern rural settlement — worship, learning, and remembrance rooted in one family's land.
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Related people
- · John H. Ford
- · Margaret Ford
- · J.D. Ford
- · Ida J. Ford
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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