Nelson Henry Rice Cemetery
Leggett, Polk County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Nelson Henry Rice and Sarah Ann Stanley married in September 1841 in Alabama. They had 11 children. John Henry Nelson, Mary Ann Elizabeth, and an unnamed son and daughter all died in Alabama. Cicero Napoleon Wesley, Jerymiah Josephus, Samuel Adolphus, Thomas Jefferson and Margerette Rivers Rice moved to Texas with their parents in 1854. The family settled first in Nacogdoches County, then moved to Newton County. During this time two more children, Emery Josephine and Frank Patrick, were born. The family migrated to this area in 1865 and purchased about one thousand acres on which to establish a family farm and homestead. According to oral history, Nelson Henry Rice and the Reverend Frank Wilson were walking the Rice property when Nelson Henry Rice placed a stake in the ground on this site and declared that this was where he wanted to be buried. The first burial on the Rice family burial ground was that of a daughter-in-law, Margaret Leona McMahon Rice, who died in March 1870. Nelson Henry Rice deeded the site for a cemetery in September of that year. He also deeded an acre of land for Wilson Chapel about a mile from the Rice home and conveyed plots of land to his children. The area became known as Rice community. Nelson Henry Rice died in 1891. Sarah Ann Stanley Rice died in 1889 while visiting their son, Thomas Jefferson, in Milam County and was interred there. Several veterans of the Civil War, World War I and World War II are interred here. The burial ground serves Rice family descendants and other community members. It was enlarged in the 1960s and in the early 21st century held 142 graves. (2000)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Nelson Henry Rice and Sarah Ann Stanley married in Alabama in 1841 and, having buried several children there, brought the rest of their family to Texas in 1854, finally settling this land in 1865 on about a thousand acres. Local memory holds that Rice drove a stake into this very spot and declared it his burial place; he also deeded land for nearby Wilson Chapel and gave plots to his children, seeding the Rice community. Civil War, World War I, and World War II veterans rest among the more than 140 graves.
Why it matters
A homestead cemetery like this shows how a single migrating family could anchor an entire rural neighborhood, its church, and its cemetery to the East Texas land.
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Related people
- · Nelson Henry Rice
- · Sarah Ann Stanley Rice
Themes & tags
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