Nineveh Cemetery
Sipe Springs, Comanche County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Settlement in the community that became known as Nineveh began as some southerners moved west after the close of the Civil War. In 1886, Hezekiah Bellamy gave two acres for a school and cemetery around this site. A young schoolmaster who was a graduate of Harvard University in Massachusetts named the school and cemetery for Nineveh in ancient Assyria. The first person to be interred here was Elizabeth McNeely (1804-1890). Her granddaughter, Minnie McNeely Dukes (1885-1972), was a teacher and community leader at Ninevah, and the Dukes family has maintained the historic graveyard. The area around the cemetery gradually became known as Old Nineveh. There are about 24 graves in the cemetery, including those of members of several pioneer Comanche County families. (2000)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The community of Nineveh grew as Southerners moved west after the Civil War, and in 1886 Hezekiah Bellamy gave two acres here for a school and cemetery. A Harvard-educated young schoolmaster named both for ancient Assyria's Nineveh. Elizabeth McNeely (1804–1890) was the first person interred, and her descendants, the Dukes family, have long tended the roughly two dozen graves that hold members of several pioneer Comanche County families.
Why it matters
This small graveyard preserves the memory of the pioneer families who settled Central Texas in the decades after the Civil War, a quiet record of frontier community life.
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Related people
- · Hezekiah Bellamy
- · Elizabeth McNeely
- · Minnie McNeely Dukes
Themes & tags
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