Mount Gilead Cemetery
Keller, Tarrant County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This burial ground originally served a pioneer settlement of related families who migrated to the area from Missouri in 1847 as members of the Peters Colony. They were headed by a widow, Permelia Allen (d. 1866), who is buried here in an unmarked grave. This tract, adjacent to the Mount Gilead Baptist Church and School, was first owned by her sons-in-law Daniel Barcroft (1812-81) and Iraneous Neace (1816-79). The earliest marked gravesite is that of William Joyce (1836-54). Homemade grave markers here reflect the pioneer lifestyle the early settlers. (1981)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This burial ground served a cluster of related families who came to North Texas from Missouri in 1847 as members of the Peters Colony, an empresario land grant meant to draw settlers to the young state. The group was led by the widow Permelia Allen, who lies here in an unmarked grave alongside her sons-in-law who first owned the tract. The homemade grave markers still reflect the hardscrabble pioneer life of the settlement.
Why it matters
It preserves the memory of the family-based migration and land-grant colonization that populated the Texas frontier in the 1840s.
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Related people
- · Permelia Allen
- · Daniel Barcroft
- · Iraneous Neace
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Pioneer Stone Burial Cairns (at Mount Gilead Cemetery)
Keller, TX
Scattered through many old Texas cemeteries are burial cairns—mounded structures of native stone raised by early settlers over their dead. Varying in design and craftsmanship, these surface memorials reflect burial customs carried west from the American South in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Though their precise purpose remains debated, the cairns endure as vivid examples of pioneer tradition and folk memory.
Keller Methodist Church
Keller, TX
Like many small Texas towns, Keller began with congregations sharing whatever building was available, until the Keller Methodist Church was formally organized in 1897 under Pastor W. K. Simpson. The church built its own home in 1913 and, by 1946, supported a full-time minister and a growing membership. Renamed the First United Methodist Church of Keller in 1968, it went on to sponsor community programs such as the Christian Community Storehouse and a preschool.
Bourland Cemetery
Keller, TX
Aurelius Delphus Bourland, a North Carolina native and Civil War veteran who was also a Primitive Baptist preacher, bought land here in 1873 and began a family cemetery, its earliest marked grave that of his grandson in 1886. In 1899 he sold the burial ground to the residents of Keller for use as a public cemetery, and later families added more land. The Works Progress Administration built its gateway in 1935.
First Baptist Church of Keller
Keller, TX
Twenty members broke away from Mt. Gilead Baptist Church to found the Keller Baptist Church in 1882, just as the railroad reached this corner of Tarrant County and drew new settlers. They gathered first in a schoolhouse and a shared union church before establishing themselves, and in 1886 helped charter the Tarrant County Baptist Association. The Rev. Elihu Newton led them as first pastor.