Bell-Fountain Cemetery

Panola County TXGenWeb carries a 1969 survey of this five-acre fenced plot by Leila B. LaGrone. She reported that rows of graves had disappeared, tombstones had been stolen and wooden markers had decayed. Her notes record that a slave cemetery lay beside the burial ground and that Wayside Church, a Black congregation's church, stood about 500 yards west on four and a half acres. The Rev. Jerry R. Alexander, the last preacher at Bell-Fountain Baptist Church, was licensed to preach there on the Saturday before the fourth Sunday in June 1877. The survey spells the post office Kemlock.

What the plaque says

Bell-Fountain Cemetery Served by the early Kinlock post office, this farming region was settled by pioneer families who shared this community cemetery. The earliest marked grave is that of Beulah P. Hough (1839-1850). Several Confederate veterans are also buried here. Z.T.P. Hill deeded the five-acre burial ground to Bell-Fountain Baptist Church, founded before the Civil War (1861-1865). When the church building burned in 1880, the congregation was disbanded. Descendants of early settlers fenced the plot and erected a tabernacle where the original church stood. (1978) SUPPLEMENTAL PLATE: The earliest identified grave in Bell Fountain Cemetery is that of John P. Hill (April 13, 1845 - August 7, 1865).

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tex Ritter Museum and Texas Country Music Hall of Fame — 12 mi
  Carthage's country music museum, with Tex Ritter's boots, guitars and saddles in a room styled like a movie theater, and exhibits on other Texas stars, Jim Reeves among them.
• Starr Family Home State Historic Site — 19 mi
  Maplecroft, the 1871 Greek Revival house Frank Starr built in Marshall, with Ruth Starr Blake's glass and china, an 1880s kitchen restored in 2019 and a retirement home built for a formerly enslaved person.
• Harrison County Historical Museum — 19 mi
  Galleries in Marshall's 1901 courthouse that run from the Caddo to the present, with Wiley College, Lady Bird Johnson's inaugural gown and a military gallery across the square in Memorial City Hall.
• Texas and Pacific Railway Depot and Museum — 20 mi
  The only surviving building of the Texas and Pacific shops at Marshall, a 1912 Mission Revival depot saved from demolition in the 1990s, still an Amtrak stop, with a railway museum and a Mikado locomotive.

More markers nearby

• DeBerry — 3.0 mi
• Bailey Anderson — 5.4 mi
• Mt. Zion Cemetery — 6.6 mi
• Grand Bluff Cemetery — 6.8 mi