Prairie Springs Cemetery
Ben Wheeler, Van Zandt County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Associated for many years with the Prairie Springs Methodist Episcopal Church, South, this cemetery dates to 1866, when the infant grandson of R. W. Berry was buried here. Berry formally deeded land for the graveyard in 1880, although several other burials took place here before that time. The Prairie Springs Church moved to the town of Ben Wheeler (2 mi. SE) in 1893, but title to the cemetery was not formally transferred to the Prairie Springs Cemetery Association until 1949. The large graveyard is the burial ground for many of the area's pioneers and their descendants. (1985)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This East Texas graveyard traces its beginnings to 1866, when the infant grandson of R. W. Berry was laid to rest here. Long tied to the Prairie Springs Methodist Episcopal Church, South, the plot was formally deeded by Berry in 1880, though burials had already gathered here. When the congregation moved to nearby Ben Wheeler in 1893, the cemetery remained, becoming the resting place for many of the area's pioneer families and their descendants.
Why it matters
The cemetery preserves the memory of the pioneer families and frontier church community that settled Van Zandt County after the Civil War.
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Related people
- · R. W. Berry
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Ben Wheeler Community
Ben Wheeler, TX
First known as Clough for the settler who bought the land in 1868 and opened a post office in his home, this East Texas community was renamed Ben Wheeler in honor of a Kentucky-born mail carrier — the first to bring the mail into Van Zandt County. The town grew quickly in the 1880s and early 1890s, boasting general stores, gins, mills, hotels, churches, and the Alamo Institute, before a series of fires and shifting fortunes slowed its growth. It stabilized in the mid-twentieth century as area farmers turned to ranching and haying.
Cox Cemetery
Canton, TX
Robert K. Gibbs and his family settled this Van Zandt County land in the early 1850s, and the earliest documented grave — an infant Gibbs daughter — dates to 1853. When Robert Daniel Cox acquired the property in 1880, he opened the small family plot as a community cemetery, which grew through later land additions. Some of the unmarked graves are believed to hold enslaved people, and five generations of the Cox family rest here.
Colfax Cemetery
Colfax, TX
A. L. Kellam donated five acres in 1883 to help establish this cemetery, whose first burial in 1884 was Elisha Tunnell, founder of the chapel and community that became Colfax. The surrounding land held three schoolhouses and two churches over the years and hosted revivals and summer camp meetings. Today the cemetery holds roughly a thousand graves of the area's pioneers and their descendants.
Holly Springs Cemetery
Martin's Mill, TX
This burial ground grew out of a rural Methodist congregation on land donated in 1860, with additional acres deeded in 1863 at the height of the Civil War to create a community cemetery. Its earliest interment was in 1863, though two stones bear older dates from graves reinterred here in 1968 from a pioneer graveyard. For well over a century it has served the settlers, church leaders, and veterans of the Martin's Mill area.