Thurmond-Fairview Cemetery
Rhome, Wise County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This community was called "Illinois Settlement" by the early families who immigrated here. Later, it became known as "Fairview". J. F. Thurmond (1853-1945) and his wife Amanda Elizabeth Merrifield arrived in 1880 from Dallas County, Texas. In 1883, when an infant daughter died, Thurmond asked his brother Fred and neighbors to select a tract for a burial ground. They chose this spot next to the land Thurmond had given for a church and schoolhouse. Including this graveyard, Thurmond had donated six acres to the community. Until the Fairview Baptist Church organized in 1895, prayer meetings were held in homes and then in the schoolhouse by visiting ministers. In 1913 Fairview Cemetery Association organized. After the school consolidated in 1950, the structure was deeded to the cemetery association. The Fairview Baptist Church leased the building and remodeled it for the youth department and community center. In 1915 this plot became the "Thurmond-Fairview Cemetery". Still in use, the site has over 400 graves. Perpetual care is funded by: an endowment left by Fred Thurmond, the proceeds from the sale of 2.7 acres given by J. M. McKinnon, revenue from a gas well, the sale of lots, and individual gifts. (1979)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Early families who called their Wise County home the "Illinois Settlement," later Fairview, put down roots here in the 1880s. When J. F. Thurmond's infant daughter died in 1883, neighbors chose a burial tract beside land he had already given for a church and school—part of six acres he donated to the community. Over the decades a cemetery association formed, the school consolidated and became a community center, and the graveyard, still in use, grew to more than 400 graves sustained by endowments and a gas well.
Why it matters
The cemetery embodies how a single settler's gifts of land seeded the church, school, and burial ground that anchored a frontier Texas community.
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Related people
- · J. F. Thurmond
- · Amanda Elizabeth Merrifield Thurmond
- · Fred Thurmond
Themes & tags
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