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Maple Grove Cemetery

Minden, Rusk County, Texas

Marker Inscription

This cemetery began with the interment of Paul and Martha Rettig's infant son, Joseph, in 1879 on Rettig family land. In 1883 two children of the tenant farming Kinsey family were buried near Joseph Rettig's grave and the site gradually became a community burial ground. A cemetery care committee was established in 1895. Presently encompassing three acres donated by the Rettig family, the cemetery contains about 600 graves. Buried here are members of three generations of some area families and veterans of wars ranging from the Texas Revolution to World War II.

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

Maple Grove Cemetery began in sorrow, with the 1879 burial of Paul and Martha Rettig's infant son Joseph on the family's Rusk County land. When two children of the tenant-farming Kinsey family were laid to rest nearby in 1883, the plot gradually became a community burial ground, formally cared for by a committee organized in 1895. Its roughly 600 graves hold three generations of area families and veterans of wars from the Texas Revolution through World War II.

Why it matters

Spanning burials of soldiers from the Texas Revolution to World War II, the cemetery quietly records more than a century of local sacrifice in the nation's wars.

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Related people

  • · Paul Rettig
  • · Martha Rettig
  • · Joseph Rettig

Themes & tags

Military & WartimeWestward ExpansionFrontier HistoryMemorial

Nearby & related markers

William C. Hays

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Born in 1806, William C. Hays cast his lot with the Texas independence movement, enlisting in Kentucky in December 1835 and fighting in the decisive victory at San Jacinto in April 1836. Rewarded with land grants, he brought his family to settle the East Texas frontier, where he helped General Sam Houston negotiate with the Cherokee leader Chief Bowles and became a founding church elder and Masonic lodge master. Five of his sons later took up arms for the Confederacy.

Welch Cemetery

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When Georgia-born Anna Welch chose this East Texas hillside for her own grave in 1877, she started a family burial ground that would gather generations of pioneers around her. Her son, Civil War veteran Andrew Jackson "Jack" Welch, owned the land, and in 1898 the family formally set aside the tract as a cemetery in his will. Enlarged by descendants into the twentieth century, it holds settlers and veterans of four wars.

Bethel Cemetery

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Bethel Cemetery grew up beside a community, school, and Methodist church at Bethel Springs, with its earliest marked grave dating to 1879 and likely older burials before it. Among those laid to rest are founders of Henderson and veterans of the Texas War for Independence, the U.S.-Mexico War, and the Texas Indian Wars—including A.K. Van Sickle, who served in all three. Today, one of the oldest cemeteries in Rusk County, it is the last trace of a community that has otherwise vanished.

Hunt Cemetery

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