Rehobeth Cemetery Chapel
Ladonia, Fannin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
First house of worship in this part of Fannin county. Place for camp meetings, burials, annual reunions since 1840. Chapel built 1850 was ruined by tornado and rebuilt in 1885. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1964
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This site has drawn worshippers since 1840, when it became the first house of worship in this corner of Fannin County and a gathering place for camp meetings, burials, and annual reunions. A chapel built in 1850 was destroyed by a tornado and rebuilt in 1885. It endures as one of the region's oldest continuously used sacred grounds.
Why it matters
Frontier camp-meeting grounds like Rehobeth were the spiritual and social crossroads of early Texas settlement, where scattered pioneers built community from scratch.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Mt. Carmel Cemetery
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This burial ground began in 1852 as a family plot when "Uncle Billy" Williams set aside a few acres for his two-year-old niece; the oldest stones mark his parents, born in the 1780s. First called Williams Cemetery, it took the name Mt. Carmel from a nearby Methodist church built in 1883, and a chapel from 1920 still stands on the grounds. From that single child's grave it has grown to nearly forty acres and some ten thousand burials.
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Bethel Lodge began under a dispensation in 1853 and was chartered by the Grand Lodge of Texas in 1854, with Wesley C. Walker as its first worshipful master. Its members were pioneer settlers, many drawn to the new state from the older South, who first met at the Rehobeth community before the lodge moved to Ladonia in the 1870s. After fire and several relocations, the group bought its meeting hall in 1912 and continued as a civic force, absorbing Yowell Lodge in 1961.
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