Sharp Cemetery and Rock Creek Baptist Church of Christ
Killeen, Bell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Emily LeSeur Haynes Sharp (1824-1880) came to Texas from Alabama with her first husband, William Glenn Haynes. They settled in Harrison County, where they owned a large amount of land and operated a cotton gin. William Haynes died in 1849, and three years later Emily married Augustus V. Sharp (1810-1868). The Sharp family moved to this area in 1859 and settled along the Lampasas River. When their six-year-old daughter, Sarah, died in 1864, she was buried on the family farm. Four years later Augustus Sharp died and was laid to rest next to his daughter. In 1879 Emily Sharp deeded three acres of land surrounding the graves to establish a community cemetery. The G.W. Dockery family deeded another 1.9 acres for church and school purposes. The Rock Creek Baptist Church of Christ was established in 1882, and in 1905 the members built a sanctuary. Among the interments in the Sharp Cemetery are those of Sharp, Haynes, and Dockery family members; veterans of several wars; and a number of infants and small children. Many of the earliest graves are marked only with field stones, and some are surrounded by 19th-century rock fences. (1991)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This cemetery began as a family burial ground when the Sharp family, having moved to the Lampasas River country in 1859, laid their six-year-old daughter Sarah to rest here in 1864. In 1879 the widowed Emily Sharp deeded three acres to create a community cemetery, and neighboring families gave land for a church and school, leading to the founding of the Rock Creek Baptist Church of Christ in 1882. The oldest graves, some marked only with field stones and ringed by nineteenth-century rock fences, hold the settlers, war veterans, and lost children of a young Central Texas community.
Why it matters
Rural cemeteries like this one are among the most honest records of frontier settlement, preserving the names and hardships of ordinary families who built Texas one farm and congregation at a time.
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Related people
- · Emily LeSeur Haynes Sharp
- · Augustus V. Sharp
Themes & tags
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