Methodist Episcopal Church of Mount Salem Cemetery
Austin, Travis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Mount Salem purchased three acres here in 1882 for a sanctuary and a cemetery. The building served as the central point for religious, educational and social activities for the Walnut Creek community until it was lost to a fire in the mid-1930s. Many graves are now unmarked, but descendants still care for the plot of Thomas Mack (1846-1919) and Ophelia Elizabeth (1857-1932) Madison, whose families farmed this land since prior to emancipation. The 1872 gravestone of Peter Elder is one of the oldest at this site that chronicles this early Travis County community. Historic Texas Cemetery - 1999
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1882 the trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church of Mount Salem bought three acres of Travis County land for a sanctuary and burial ground, creating the spiritual and social center of the Walnut Creek community. Among those laid to rest here are members of families like the Madisons, who farmed this land from before emancipation, and Peter Elder, whose 1872 stone is among the oldest markers. The church itself burned in the mid-1930s, leaving the cemetery—many of its graves now unmarked—as the community's living memory.
Why it matters
The site preserves the story of a self-sustaining Black farming community whose roots reached back to slavery, a chapter often erased from the landscape.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Thomas Mack Madison
- · Ophelia Elizabeth Madison
- · Peter Elder
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Fiskville
Austin, TX
Fiskville grew up along Little Walnut Creek just outside Austin, seeded by pioneers like Josiah Fisk in 1846 and Edward Zimmerman in 1854. By the time Zimmerman became postmaster in 1873, more than 150 people farmed this dispersed community, which supported cotton gins—including one owned by G.W. Corzine, a formerly enslaved man—and other small businesses. Absorbed into Austin as the city grew, the settlement survives today in its cemetery, Zimmerman's 1854 home, and the street names that still carry its memory.
St. John Orphanage and Industrial Institute
Austin, TX
Founded by a conference of historically African American Baptist congregations, the St. John Orphanage and Industrial Institute rose on 306 acres north of downtown Austin, its main building completed in 1910 after fire destroyed the first. The institute taught everything from grade school through college—academics alongside industrial, domestic, and agricultural training—and its summer encampments drew crowds up to 15,000, with Booker T. Washington himself lecturing in 1911. Weakened by the Great Depression, it closed in 1942, and the land later became Highland Mall and, eventually, an Austin Community College campus—returning to educational use.
First Colored Baptist Church
Austin, TX
In the years surrounding emancipation, Austin's African American Baptists moved from worshiping as enslaved members of a white congregation toward a church of their own. Under the Rev. Jacob Fontaine, a Black preacher and community leader, the congregation was formally organized in 1867 with thirteen charter members, holding early services in a blacksmith shop and a church basement before the city deeded land for its first sanctuary in 1869. For more than a century it has been a cornerstone of Black religious and civic life in the city.
Bethany Cemetery
Austin, TX
Bethany Cemetery was established in the late 1800s after burial space for African Americans in Austin's Oakwood Cemetery ran out, its oldest recorded grave that of an infant, Hellen Moore, in 1879. C. W. Jones bought the land in 1892, and the Bethany Cemetery Company—formed in 1893 by William Holland, Henderson Rollins, Allen Bradley, and William M. Tears—cared for it for decades. A community association took up its upkeep in 1976, and the graveyard still serves the area today.