OLDEST Marked Grave in Marystown Cemetery - Marystown, TX
N 32° 27.770 W 097° 19.190
14S E 657907 N 3592981
A 2011 Texas Historical Marker at Marystown Cemetery, south of Burleson where Marystown once stood, notes that the oldest marked grave in the cemetery belongs to Martha Jane (Ledbetter) Ware, who was buried here way back in 1864.
Waymark Code: WM104BR
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 02/23/2019
Views: 1
Mrs. Ware is buried next to her husband and other Ware family members, their graves marked by simple concrete headstones stamped with their names. Hers reads:
Ware
Martha Ledbetter
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The historical marker provides some background:
Families moved to this area in the 1850s, settling among the beautiful trees surrounding Quil Miller Creek and its springs which ran almost year-round. One of the earliest settlers, Cumberland Presbyterian minister J.S. Wilshire, farmed with his wife and seven children by 1853. In 1869, Thomas W. Hollingsworth opened a mill and a large mercantile store. The town was named Marysville for his wife, Mary, the community’s first schoolteacher, who taught in her home just west of the cemetery. A post office operated from 1874-1901 with the name of Marystown, since Texas already had a Marysville. Only the Baptist church and cemetery remain from the historic settlement.
Marystown Cemetery covers more than two acres of the 1859 survey of Isaac A. Jackson. About 1860, he set aside the land for use as a cemetery when he buried a family member whose grave is now unknown. The oldest marked grave is for Martha Jane (Ledbetter) Ware, who died on March 13, 1864. About 15 burials are diphtheria victims from a passing 1870s wagon train. Pioneer settlers buried here include Isaac and Fannie Jackson, Thomas and Mary Hollingsworth, and Robert and William Billingsley, two signers of the 1854 petition to create Johnson County. Many veterans of U.S. military conflicts dating to the Civil War are interred here. Several headstones depict fraternal associations including Woodmen of the World and Masons. The general landscape is traditional in nature. Entrance is through a historic wrought iron arch gate. Family plots are mostly curbed or fenced. The Marystown Cemetery Association formed in 1987 to provide maintenance and oversight of this historic burial ground and its graves which provide a record of area families and a pioneer rural community.
FIRST - Classification Variable: Person or Group
Date of FIRST: 03/16/1864
More Information - Web URL: [Web Link]
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