Union Grove Cemetery
Wills Point, Van Zandt County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Settlers William McBee and Adam Sullivan established the Union Grove community in 1844. McBee built and operated the first corn mill in Van Zandt County, and Union Grove grew to include a Baptist Church and the McBee School. Charles Rufus Peery donted land for a community burial ground in 1880; the earliest intermenet is Peery's mother-in-law, Mary Ann Hindman Henson. The cemetery, sited on a hill overlooking the surrounding countryside, has many large oak and cedar trees on its grounds. It is the final resting place for dozens of veterans of the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The Union Grove Cemetery Assocaition, active since the 1940s, cares for this historic graveyard.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Union Grove community grew from the 1844 arrival of settlers who built the county's first corn mill and, in time, a Baptist church and school. A local landowner donated this hilltop of oak and cedar for a burial ground in 1880. Generations later it holds the graves of veterans from the Civil War through Vietnam, tended since the 1940s by a community association.
Why it matters
A single country graveyard gathers the ordinary settlers and citizen-soldiers of more than a century of American history into one shaded hillside.
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Related people
- · William McBee
- · Adam Sullivan
- · Charles Rufus Peery
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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