Richland Cemetery
Mertens, Hill County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Jesse S. and Mary Ann Thomas brought their family to Texas from Georgia in 1858, settling first in Rusk and Smith counties. They relocated to this area in 1873 and purchased land along Richland Creek. In 1883 they deeded three acres of land for a community cemetery. The oldest documented grave here is that of Mary E. McCleskey (1826-1883). Others interred in the graveyard include area pioneers; five generations of the Thomas family; and veterans of the Civil War, Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
After bringing their family from Georgia to Texas in 1858, Jesse and Mary Ann Thomas settled along Richland Creek and in 1883 deeded three acres for a community burial ground. The oldest documented grave, from that same year, belongs to Mary E. McCleskey. Five generations of the Thomas family rest here alongside area pioneers and veterans of every American war from the Civil War through Vietnam.
Why it matters
Family-founded cemeteries like this one map the arc of rural Texas settlement and the service its people gave across a century of the nation's conflicts.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the 1850s, a steady stream of families from the Deep South moved west into Texas looking for cheaper, fertile land. Georgia sent many of them. East Texas counties like Rusk and Smith were natural first stops, with piney woods and farmland similar to what settlers had known back home.
After the Civil War, settlement pushed farther west onto the rich blackland prairies of Central Texas. Hill County, with its deep soils and creeks, drew families who wanted to farm on a larger scale. By the 1870s and 1880s, rural communities were taking shape along waterways like Richland Creek.
In those scattered farm communities, a burial ground was one of the first shared institutions. When a family set aside land for a cemetery, they gave neighbors a permanent place to mourn, remember, and gather, often decades before a town had much else.
People & events
Jesse S. and Mary Ann Thomas brought their family from Georgia to Texas in 1858. Like many migrating families, they didn't settle in one place right away. They lived first in Rusk and Smith counties in East Texas, then moved to this part of Hill County in 1873 and bought land along Richland Creek.
In 1883 the Thomases gave three acres of their land for a community cemetery. It was a generous and lasting gift: a place where their neighbors, and eventually their own descendants, could be buried. That same year saw the burial of Mary E. McCleskey, born in 1826, whose grave is the oldest documented one here.
In the generations that followed, the cemetery filled with the story of the community. Area pioneers rest here, along with five generations of the Thomas family. So do veterans of the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, both World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam, which amounts to more than a century of local families answering their country's call.
Its place in the American story
Richland Cemetery traces the westward movement that built much of the American South and Southwest. The Thomas family's route from Georgia to East Texas to the Central Texas prairie was typical of thousands of families who moved step by step toward new land in the middle of the nineteenth century.
Country cemeteries like this one are also some of the most honest records of American military service. The veterans buried here were farmers' sons and neighbors from a small rural community, and they served in conflicts spanning from the 1860s to the Vietnam era. Their headstones show how national wars reached into the smallest corners of the country.
Finally, the cemetery shows how much American community life depended on private generosity. A single family's gift of land created a shared sacred space that has lasted well over a century.
If you visit
This is a quiet, rural place, the kind of cemetery where the wind across the prairie and the names on old stones do most of the talking. Take your time walking the rows. You may notice how family names repeat across generations, a reminder of the five generations of Thomases buried here.
Look for the older markers from the 1880s and for veterans' headstones, which often note a branch of service or a war. Together they sketch the community's long history in a way no single sign can.
The cemetery fits well on a back-roads drive through Hill County's farm country. Please treat it as the active, sacred ground it is: stay on paths where possible, don't touch or make rubbings of fragile stones, and respect any families who may be visiting.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Jesse S. Thomas
- · Mary Ann Thomas
- · Mary E. McCleskey
Themes & tags
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