Zion Cemetery
Iola, Grimes County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Zion Cemetery is the final resting place of early pioneers of Grimes County and their descendants whose memory is preserved here. Methodist Episcopal Church, South, now known as Zion United Methodist Church, formed in 1852 when settlers purchased three acres of land from L.E. Jones. Initially on this property, a log cabin church also served as a school, known as McCary School. When death entered the settlement, graves were placed among the trees, thus beginning the Zion Cemetery. Although the church later moved to Iola, the cemetery remained in the community and continued to grow. In August 1867, Priscilla McMahan donated 3.46 acres adjoining the original approximate 3-acre tract. Many burials at Zion Cemetery represent early pioneers and settlers of the area, including the gravesite of Katy Holland McDowell Treadwell Cobb (1815-1886), a member of Austin's Old Three-Hundred. The earliest grave in the cemetery is that of John William Diserens (1839-1857), who died on July 12, 1857. John William, the son of early pioneer, John David Diserens (1796-1867), is also buried here. The cemetery is also the final resting place of veterans of the Civil War, WWI, WWII, Korean War and Vietnam War. Also represented are those lost to the yellow fever epidemic in 1867, as well as numerous infant burials. The Iola Cemetery Association, founded before World War II, manages the historic cemetery with ownership remaining with the Zion United Methodist Church in Iola. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2017
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Zion Cemetery grew from a log-cabin church and school that Methodist settlers established in Grimes County in 1852, when the first graves were laid among the trees. It holds early pioneers of the area, including Katy Holland McDowell Treadwell Cobb, a member of Stephen F. Austin's original Old Three Hundred colonists, along with victims of the 1867 yellow fever epidemic and veterans of every war from the Civil War through Vietnam. Managed today by a cemetery association, it remains tied to the Zion United Methodist Church in nearby Iola.
Why it matters
A single burial ground here links Austin's founding Anglo colony, a deadly frontier epidemic, and generations of American soldiers, tracing the whole arc of a Texas community.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Katy Holland McDowell Treadwell Cobb
- · John William Diserens
Related events
- · Yellow fever epidemic of 1867
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Katy Holland McDowell Treadwell Cobb
Iola, TX
Katy Holland came to Texas in 1822 as a seven-year-old, part of Stephen F. Austin's celebrated "Old 300" colony of Anglo settlers. Her life laid bare the brutality of the frontier: twice widowed before she married William Cobb in the 1840s, she raised five children through hardship and loss. Her first husband was himself an Austin colonist, and her cousin Tapley Holland died at the Alamo.
Lake Grove Community
Iola, TX
In 1874 law partners Ben Goodrich and H. H. Boone—the latter a Texas Attorney General—donated four acres to the Methodist Episcopal Church for the scattered farm community of Lake Grove. Residents quickly raised a building used for both worship and schooling, and by 1900 a hundred students attended the Lake Grove School. The still-active cemetery, with stones dating to 1874, holds the grave of a Civil War veteran.
Isham Davis Home
Iola, TX
Built in 1848 with hand-hewn cedar in its log foundation, ceilings, and beams, this home remained in the family of Isham D. Davis for 115 years. His wife Martha was a daughter of Mathew Caldwell, one of the signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence. The house stands as a sturdy relic of the earliest years of Anglo settlement in Grimes County.
Grimes County Bethel Cemetery
Bedias, TX
During the Republic of Texas years, settlers gathered here to form the Bethel community, and the burial of a smallpox victim in 1843 began what became Bethel Cemetery. Among those resting here is Sarah Bradley Dodson, remembered as the 'Betsy Ross of Texas,' whose 1835 Lone Star flag flew over Washington-on-the-Brazos at the signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence. Her husband Archelaus later deeded the ground to a Presbyterian congregation, and in 1904 an adjacent section opened for the area's African American residents.