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.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the 1850s Texas was a young state, and much of its population was on the move. Settlers from the older Southern states poured in, many first to the cotton lands of East Texas. Harrison County, where Emily Haynes and her first husband settled, lay in the heart of that plantation country. Its prosperity rested on cotton and on the labor of enslaved people, who made up a large share of the county's population before the Civil War.
By the late 1850s the frontier of settlement had pushed west into Central Texas, into the rolling prairies and river valleys of what is now Bell County. The Sharp family arrived along the Lampasas River in 1859. That was the eve of secession, and the Civil War would soon take men away from farms across the region and leave many households to be run by women.
The decades after the war brought hard times and slow recovery. In rural Texas, communities formed around a few basic institutions: a burying ground, a church and a school, often sharing the same few acres. The Sharp Cemetery and the Rock Creek Baptist Church of Christ grew out of exactly that pattern.
People & events
At the center of this story is Emily LeSeur Haynes Sharp, born in 1824. She came to Texas from Alabama with her first husband, William Glenn Haynes, and the couple built up considerable land and a cotton gin in Harrison County. When William died in 1849, Emily was left a young widow on the Texas frontier. Three years later she married Augustus V. Sharp.
In 1859 the Sharps moved west to the Lampasas River country. The land held grief as well as promise. In 1864, during the Civil War, their six-year-old daughter Sarah died and was buried on the family farm. Four years later Augustus died too, and he was laid to rest beside her. What started as a family plot was really a record of a household's losses.
Emily's decision in 1879 made this place more than a family plot. She deeded three acres around those graves for a community cemetery, turning private sorrow into something the whole neighborhood could share. The G.W. Dockery family added nearly two more acres for a church and a school. The Rock Creek Baptist Church of Christ was organized in 1882, and in 1905 its members built a sanctuary. The people buried here include Sharps, Haynes and Dockerys, veterans of several wars, and many infants and small children. Emily herself died in 1880, a year after she gave the land.
Its place in the American story
Rural cemeteries like this one are some of the most honest records of how America was settled. They don't celebrate generals or statesmen. They record ordinary families, and the many small graves here show how common the death of young children was in the nineteenth century, even in households with land and means.
Emily Sharp's story matters to women's history. In an era when women had limited legal and public roles, widowhood often made a woman the owner and decision-maker of family property. Her gift of land shaped a community that outlived her by generations. It is a quiet example of how women helped build local institutions on the frontier.
The path of her life, from Alabama to East Texas cotton country to Central Texas prairie, follows the broader westward movement of Southern families before and after the Civil War. That migration, and the slave-based cotton economy that drove much of it, is central to the history of Texas and the nation.
If you visit
Approach the cemetery quietly and with respect. It is a burial ground, and for many local families it is still a place of remembrance. Look for the oldest graves. Some are marked only with field stones, simple rocks set upright by grieving families who had no carved headstone. You may also see the low nineteenth-century rock fences that surround some of the family plots.
Take a moment to find the section with the earliest burials. This is where the community began, with one small girl buried on her family's farm during the Civil War. The small graves throughout the cemetery tell their own story about how hard frontier life could be.
This stop fits well into a drive through Central Texas river and prairie country. Pair it with other cemeteries and church markers in Bell County to see how rural communities formed. Please don't step on graves or disturb stones and fences, and remember that some rural cemeteries sit near private land, so follow any posted signs.
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
- · Emily LeSeur Haynes Sharp
- · Augustus V. Sharp
Themes & tags
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