Old Perry Cemetery
Moody, McLennan County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This cemetery was established to serve the pioneer settlers of the Perry community. The first burial her was that of Jane Leach,a schoolteacher who died in 1854. Perry was the site of several stores, a gin, school, union church, and a post office. Following a destructive 1873 storm, the residents moved to the townsite of New Perry (2 mi E). The settlement was relocated at the present site of Moody (2 mi SW) in 1881 when Santa Fe Rail lines were completed to the area. Only this cemetery remains at the original site of the Perry Community.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This cemetery grew to serve the pioneer settlers of the Perry community, beginning with the 1854 grave of Jane Leach, a schoolteacher. Perry once held stores, a gin, a school, a union church, and a post office, but a destructive storm in 1873 pushed residents to a new townsite, and the coming of the Santa Fe rail lines in 1881 drew the settlement again to what became Moody. Only this cemetery marks the community's original ground.
Why it matters
The wandering of Perry from site to site, chasing safety and then the railroad, illustrates how the arrival of the rails redrew the map of rural Texas.
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Related people
- · Jane Leach
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Baptist Church of Moody
Moody, TX
The First Baptist Church of Moody was organized in 1855 in the nearby community of Perry, with Elder S. G. O'Bryan as its first pastor and the Rev. John McClain among its early ministers. When the Santa Fe Railroad bypassed Perry in the early 1880s, the congregation followed opportunity to the new railroad town of Moody, relocating in 1883. Over the decades it ordained pastors from its own membership and helped anchor the surrounding community.
Bruceville Baptist Church
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Organized around 1870-71 as Salem Baptist Church in the town of Mastersville, this congregation first met in a minister's home and a brush arbor. As the railroad reshaped the region, the church followed its people two miles south to the new rail town of Bruceville, building a sanctuary in 1896 that served until a new one replaced it in 1975.
Lorena Cemetery
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Lorena Cemetery was set aside in 1881 by pioneer Daniel Aerl just as railroad financier Gen. Grenville M. Dodge bought sixty acres and platted a town along his Missouri, Kansas and Texas line. Dodge named the village for Lorena Westbrook Robertson, a local landowner's daughter who is buried here, and the ground fills with the graves of pioneer families, community founders, and veterans, its earliest burials the infant Lemuel Crook and young Jacky Pool.
Crawford
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