Mt. Hope Cemetery
Wells, Cherokee County, Texas
Marker Inscription
James H. Bowman, a veteran of the Texas War for Independence from Mexico, offered 100 acres of land to the Rev. W. D. Lewis to come to the Mt. Hope community and establish a Methodist church and cemetery. The Rev. Mr. Lewis agreed, and the congregation began in 1875. In November of that year Margaret (Ruby) Hicks was the first person to be buried in the adjacent cemetery. Though the church congregation moved to nearby Wells after the arrival of the railroad in 1886, the cemetery continued to be a place of importance to the Mt. Hope and Wells communities. Among the more than 1800 people of Wells, Mt. Hope and other Cherokee County communities interred here, there are more than 200 military veterans, including eight Confederate soldiers. The cemetery is a chronicle of the history of Cherokee County. (2000)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Mt. Hope Cemetery began in 1875 when James H. Bowman, a veteran of the Texas War for Independence, offered land to the Rev. W. D. Lewis to establish a Methodist church and burial ground in the Mt. Hope community. Margaret "Ruby" Hicks was the first interred that November, and though the congregation later followed the railroad to nearby Wells, the cemetery remained a fixture of local life. More than eighteen hundred people rest here, including over two hundred military veterans and eight Confederate soldiers.
Why it matters
The cemetery is a written-in-stone chronicle of Cherokee County — its Texas-independence pioneers, its churches, and its soldiers across generations.
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Related people
- · James H. Bowman
- · Rev. W. D. Lewis
- · Margaret (Ruby) Hicks
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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Mt. Hope Cemetery
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Joseph and Mary Bowman brought their family through Missouri and Mississippi to Texas as part of Stephen F. Austin's colony, and their sons Joseph, John, and James fought for Texas independence from Mexico. In 1875 James H. Bowman offered a hundred acres to draw the Rev. W. D. Lewis to establish a Methodist church at Mt. Hope, giving adjacent land for this cemetery. The first burial came that November; when the railroad passed through Wells in 1886, the church moved to town and Bowman himself was laid to rest here.
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