Sessions Cemetery
Kirvin, Freestone County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This cemetery is the largest of three slave graveyards which local tradition indicates were established in the area in the early 1850s. It was named for delegate to Texas' Constitutional Convention of 1875 and prominent local citizen Gustavus Adolphus (G. A.) Sessions (1827-1902), who donated the land. The oldest burial here is believed to be that of Anderson Carter, who died in the 1850s. The cemetery is closely associated with the nearby Shiloh Primitive Baptist Church and contains the grave sites of many notable former area slaves and their descendants.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The largest of three slave graveyards said to have been established in this part of Freestone County in the early 1850s, this cemetery was named for G. A. Sessions, a prominent local citizen and delegate to Texas's 1875 Constitutional Convention, who donated the land. Its oldest burial is believed to be that of Anderson Carter, who died in the 1850s. Closely tied to the nearby Shiloh Primitive Baptist Church, it holds the graves of many enslaved people and their descendants.
Why it matters
The cemetery is a rare and sacred record of enslaved African Americans and their descendants, preserving names and lives too often left out of the written past.
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Related people
- · G. A. Sessions
- · Anderson Carter
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Shiloh Primitive Baptist Church and School
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