Little Flock Cemetery and Primitive Baptist Church
Temple, Bell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
On land donated by J.W. and Mary Moore, owners of a pioneer gristmill and cotton gin. First burial (about 1860) was a stranger who died on a wagon trip from West Texas to Arkansas. Other old graves: fever victims and faithful Moore family servants. Little Flock (named for text in Luke 12:32) was a meeting place for seven congregations camping here annually on first Sunday in May to worship with ritual foot washing. Sunshine Church, founded before 1848, moved here in 1879. (1969)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In the frontier decades before and after the Civil War, families like the Moores anchored rural Bell County with a gristmill, a cotton gin, and a burial ground open to strangers and neighbors alike. The first grave, dug about 1860 for an unknown traveler who died on the road between West Texas and Arkansas, captures how perilous overland movement was in early Texas. Named for a verse in Luke, Little Flock became a camp-meeting ground where seven congregations gathered each May for worship and the old rite of foot washing.
Why it matters
It preserves the texture of pioneer community life in central Texas, where a cemetery, a mill, and a shared meeting ground did the work that towns and institutions would later take over.
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Related people
- · J.W. Moore
- · Mary Moore
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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