Union Chapel Cemetery and Church - Texas Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

Union Chapel is a church community on State Highway 110, a light-duty road, and two dirt roads, just south of Van Lake and three miles west of Garden Valley in extreme western Smith County. The area, originally part of the John Walling, Sr., 1,487-acre survey, had been settled by August 10, 1873, when Olive Cosby Mayne Cary was buried there. A month later Amplias Smith deeded three acres to the Methodist Protestant and the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, for a church and cemetery, and settlers soon constructed the large wooden Union Chapel. In 1887 the grounds were expanded when Smith donated an additional three-quarters of an acre. The 1936 county highway map does not label the settlement but does show the cemetery and a few farms in the vicinity. In 1947 eleven church members donated three acres to enlarge the cemetery, and in 1949 the old church was torn down and a new brick chapel was built in its place. Local children were attending classes in Van Zandt County by 1952. In 1959 Union Chapel included the church, the cemetery, clay pits, and a sparse collection of dwellings. The community was still identified on a 1981 map. In 1985 the Union Chapel Church and Cemetery received a Texas Historical Commission marker. (Source)

Marker Number: 7765 Marker Text: The earliest marked grave in this cemetery, that of Olive Cosby Mayne, is dated August 1873, one month before early area settler Amplias Smith deeded 3 acres of land here for a Methodist church and cemetery. The congregation soon built a sanctuary that served until a new structure was erected in 1949. Smith and others gave additional land over the years, thus greatly enlarging the size of the cemetery. Many members of pioneer families in this rural area are buried here, including land donor Amplias Smith (1813-1888) and his wife, Martha (1825-1883). Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986.

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