Pleasant Grove Cemetery
Coryell County, Coryell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The 1850 U.S. census lists 94 soldiers at Fort Gates, including Irish-born Hugh Sheridan. After Fort Gates closed in March 1853, Sheridan and other families settled on farms in the Leon River lowlands. They established the Pleasant Grove community, likely named for the groves of post oak trees scattered in the area. Sheridan, Nimrod Brown, William B. Powell, and the Worthington, Traller, Cummings, Price and Hall families were among the first landowners. John Marshall Brown, son of Nimrod Brown, was appointed trustee of Pleasant Grove School District No. 26 by Coryell County Judge S. B. Raby in Nov. 1877. William B. Powell donated land for a school in 1883, stipulating that religious services be permitted in the building. The school enrolled 41 students in 1902. Pleasant Grove residents attended the 1904 farmers education and co-operative union in Mound, and had a democratic club in 1908. The school operated until 1910, when Pleasant Grove, Farmers Branch and Branchville schools consolidated to form the Ewing school district. A community burial ground was established on the farm of Walter T. Worthington. The earliest dated gravestone is for Catherine Janes, who died in 1867 at age 74. Dozens of burials had occurred by 1899, when Worthington deeded two acres “to be used by Pleasant Grove community as a graveyard forever and I also sell to said community the fence as it now stands on the north side of this tract of land, for $25.00.” Notable burials include military veterans from the Civil War through World War II, and an unusual inscription for Joseph H. Taller noting he was born at sea in 1832. Fort Hood provides maintenance for this still-active cemetery, which is the last remaining historic resource of the Pleasant Grove community.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
After Fort Gates closed in 1853, soldiers like Irish-born Hugh Sheridan and families such as the Browns and Powells settled the Leon River lowlands and named their community for its groves of post oak. They built a school district, held farmers' union meetings and a Democratic club, and buried their dead in ground Walter Worthington deeded in 1899 "to be used...as a graveyard forever." The graves range from an 1867 burial to veterans of every war from the Civil War through World War II.
Why it matters
Pleasant Grove shows how a disbanded frontier fort seeded a farming community whose cemetery is now its last surviving trace on the land.
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Related people
- · Hugh Sheridan
- · Nimrod Brown
- · Walter T. Worthington
Related events
- · Closure of Fort Gates
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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