HistoricSiteMarkers
Reconstruction & Gilded Age

McNeil Cemetery

Luling, Caldwell County, Texas

Marker Inscription

(Soda Springs Methodist Cemetery) This cemetery was founded on land deeded to the Soda Springs Methodist Church about 1867 by early settler Margret Hinds. The first recorded burial was that of Henrietta Gant in 1868. The cemetery was first known as Soda Springs Methodist Cemetery but was renamed McNeil Cemetery sometime before Soda Springs Methodist Church disbanded in 1919. Among the more than 390 grave sites in the cemetery are many of the area's early settlers and their descendants. the cemetery is maintained by an association and continues to serve the McNeil community. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

Founded about 1867 on land deeded to the Soda Springs Methodist Church by early settler Margret Hinds, this cemetery took its first recorded burial—Henrietta Gant—in 1868. Once known as Soda Springs Methodist Cemetery, it was renamed McNeil sometime before the church disbanded in 1919. More than 390 graves hold the area's early settlers and their descendants, and an association still cares for the grounds.

Why it matters

It preserves the memory of a vanished frontier congregation whose burial ground long outlived the church that first consecrated it.

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Related people

  • · Margret Hinds
  • · Henrietta Gant

Themes & tags

Westward ExpansionFrontier HistoryLandmark

Nearby & related markers

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Clearfork Baptist Church

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Burial site of Rev. John McCullough

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Born in Pennsylvania in 1805 and schooled at Princeton, John McCullough was ordained a missionary in 1835 and reached Texas in 1838, at the height of the young Republic. He served as chaplain to the Third Congress, founded Galveston's First Presbyterian Church, and famously hauled a Conestoga wagon dubbed the "Little Church in the Wilderness" to San Antonio, where he helped raise the city's first Protestant sanctuary. He kept preaching and teaching across the frontier until his death at Prairie Lea in 1870.

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