Liberty Cemetery
Edom vicinity, Van Zandt County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Located along the Tyler-Porter's Bluff Road, a major route for pioneers coming through Texas from eastern and southern parts of the United States, this burial ground is a reflection of 19th- and 20th-century settlement in this area of Van Zandt County. Liberty Cemetery is located within acreage obtained by pioneer David Riley in 1851. According to local tradition, Riley was a charter member of the Liberty Baptist Church, which served the local community for about ten years in the mid-19th century. Riley may have sold or donated part of his land for use by the church and for this cemetery, but a missing volume of county deed records prevents clear documentation of such a land transaction. The earliest documented grave is that of Watson McWilliams, who died in December 1855. Another gravestone, inscribed simply "first", provides no name or date, and a number of grave sites along the western boundary of the cemetery bear native red sandstone markers with no inscriptions. By 1874 there were 25 known graves in the Liberty Cemetery, and at the turn of the 21st century, it contained more than 450 grave sites. The Liberty Cemetery Association maintains the burial ground and holds an annual reunion for friends and relatives of those buried in the pioneer cemetery. (2001) Incising on base: Historians Doug Reynolds & John Beall
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Along the Tyler–Porter's Bluff Road, a main artery for pioneers streaming into Texas from the East and South, Liberty Cemetery grew from land pioneer David Riley obtained in 1851. Tradition holds Riley was a charter member of the short-lived Liberty Baptist Church, which may have shared the ground, though a missing volume of county deeds leaves the transaction unproven. The earliest documented grave dates to 1855, and unmarked native red sandstone markers along the western edge hint at settlers whose names are now lost; by the 21st century the cemetery held more than 450 graves.
Why it matters
The cemetery is a layered record of frontier settlement in Texas, its anonymous sandstone markers a reminder of how many pioneer lives passed into history without a name.
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Related people
- · David Riley
- · Watson McWilliams
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Allen Cemetery
Murchison, TX
The Murchison community grew up as a station on the Texas and St. Louis Railway, named for Confederate officer T.F. Murchison, and soon supported a school, post office, cotton gin, churches, and farms of corn, cotton, and peaches. This burial ground served residents from the late 1800s, with James Mack Pettiet's 1890 grave the oldest marked stone and the family of J.C. Allen giving it its name. Pioneers, farmers, ranchers, and veterans reaching back to the Civil War rest here under vertical stones and fraternal markers.
Ben Wheeler Community
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First known as Clough for the settler who bought the land in 1868 and opened a post office in his home, this East Texas community was renamed Ben Wheeler in honor of a Kentucky-born mail carrier — the first to bring the mail into Van Zandt County. The town grew quickly in the 1880s and early 1890s, boasting general stores, gins, mills, hotels, churches, and the Alamo Institute, before a series of fires and shifting fortunes slowed its growth. It stabilized in the mid-twentieth century as area farmers turned to ranching and haying.
Tyler-Porter's Bluff Road
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First mapped by state surveyors in 1846 and 1849, this old road may predate Mexican rule, running from Tyler to Porter's Bluff on the Navarro County line. It served as a military road and a cattle trail, and by 1870 the Memphis and El Paso Stage Line made a dozen mail stops along it, nine in Van Zandt County alone. Modern highways later absorbed much of the route, though traces of the trail remained visible into the late 20th century.
Edom
Edom, TX
Edom is one of the oldest towns in Van Zandt County, and a restless one: it occupied three different sites before settling into its present place. Founded as Hamburg in 1849 by sawmill builders James Coltharp and A. C. Beall, it acquired a stagecoach station and post office, shifted west to a crossroads as Newburg, then moved again in the 1850s to become Edom. A church organized in 1857 and a post office in 1858 anchored the community, which finally incorporated in 1966.