Nelta Cemetery
Sulphur Bluff, Hopkins County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In December 1842, a wagon train from Warrick County, Indiana arrived near here, led by two Hargrave brothers. Other families arrived in the following months, and the communities of Pleasant Hill and Sulphur Bluff were established near the Sulphur River. In 1878, Greenlief Neely deeded one acre to the Pleasant Hill school trustees for a combination schoolhouse and church open to all denominations. The Pleasant Hill community received a new name when the Nelta post office opened in 1882. The first known area cemetery began with the burial of William Hargarve’s son in August 1843. A community burial ground developed around the site, and when the McFall family later donated an acre including the graveyard, it became known as McFall Cemetery. Eldred Glen Hargrave died in 1859, and his burial on the family farm established Hargrave Cemetery. In September 1883, Bertram Oscar Bryant, son of Ruffus and Eva (Hargrave) Bryant, was buried on the north side of the Pleasant Hill School and Church, thus establishing Nelta cemetery. In 1913, Nelta Cemetery trustees purchased two acres for cemetery purposes from J. G. Trent, encompassing the original burial areas. After the school relocated, trustees sold their one acre of land to the Nelta cemetery. An additional four acres were purchased from G. W. and Lillie Ward in 1920. Graves are oriented east-west in an open prairie dotted with oak trees. Gravestone materials include marble, granite and concrete. There are numerous military burials here, from the U.S.-Mexico War to World War II. The Nelta Cemetery Association maintains this active burial ground, a continuum of the area’s history from pioneer times to the modern day.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In December 1842 a wagon train from Warrick County, Indiana, led by two Hargrave brothers, reached the Sulphur River country, and settlement soon followed. The earliest burial came in 1843, and over decades several nearby graveyards—McFall, Hargrave, and the church plot at Pleasant Hill—merged into what became Nelta Cemetery when the community took the name of its 1882 post office. Trustees expanded the grounds through land purchases into the 1920s.
Why it matters
The cemetery traces an unbroken thread from Republic-of-Texas pioneers to the modern day, its graves spanning military service from the U.S.–Mexico War through World War II.
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Related people
- · Greenlief Neely
- · William Hargrave
Themes & tags
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