Red Hill Cemetery
Brownsboro, Henderson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Settlement in this area began in the 1840s. By 1849 the Red Hill Methodist Church had been established about three miles northwest of here. Sometime prior to 1877 the Red Hill Methodist congregation began to hold camp meetings at this site. In 1877 Smith County resident H. E. Calehan donated more than seven acres here to the Red Hill Methodist Episcopal Church, South. Though a church building was never built at the site, Methodist congregations from the Red Hill and Blackjack communities attended summer revivals here. The religious gatherings, which included brush arbor meetings, became traditional annual events. According to local tradition burials took place here prior to the first recorded interment, that of Joel and Mary Morton's daughter Lucinda in 1877. The site became a community graveyard serving the area's rural community and the towns of Brownsboro, Blackjack, and Murchison. Red Hill Cemetery contains more than 450 marked grave sites. Among the people buried here are many of the pioneer settlers of the area and their descendants and veterans of wars ranging from the Civil War to the Vietnam conflict. The cemetery is maintained by the Red Hill Cemetery Association. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845 - 1995
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Settlers reached this part of Henderson County in the 1840s, and by 1849 the Red Hill Methodist Church had formed nearby. Beginning before 1877, congregations from the Red Hill and Blackjack communities gathered here for summer revivals and brush-arbor camp meetings — a beloved annual tradition — even though no church building ever rose on the spot. The grounds became a community cemetery of more than 450 marked graves, holding pioneer settlers, their descendants, and veterans of wars from the Civil War through Vietnam.
Why it matters
Red Hill preserves the vanished world of the frontier camp meeting and the generations of a rural Texas community, from its earliest pioneers to its wartime veterans.
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Themes & tags
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