Grange Hall Cemetery

The village beside the cemetery was Cryer Creek, named for a waterfall whose sound reminded settlers of a woman crying, a Navarro County cemetery history says. Samuel Wilson, who came from Kentucky in 1847, bought the land in 1854, and burials began in 1872 with several infants and his son Lott. A school opened in 1875, and the Methodist church disbanded in 1934. The village store closed in 1963 after seventy-two years. A new cemetery association formed in 1980 and cleared the overgrown hillside, where about 350 graves remain.

What the plaque says

Grange Hall Cemetery Established to serve the small farming community of Cryer Creek, Grange Hall Cemetery most likely derived its name from the active farmers' organization known as The Grange. The site was used for a burial ground as early as 1872, five years before Navarro County pioneer Samuel Wilson donated the land for a Methodist Church and churchyard. Those buried here include a number of Civil War veterans, area pioneer families, and members of the Mississippi colony who moved here from Meridian, Miss. in 1870. (1983)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Petroleum Industry Park — 13 mi
  The pipes and drilling tower mark where a city water well struck oil on June 9, 1894, the start of the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities.
• Ellis County Courthouse — 20 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.
• Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery — 27 mi
  The Freestone County grave of the Texas blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson, who recorded for Paramount in Chicago from 1926 and died there in December 1929.
• Hill County Courthouse — 28 mi
  Wesley C. Dodson's limestone Second Empire courthouse of 1890 on the Hillsboro square, gutted by fire on New Year's Day 1993 and rededicated in 1999 after a rebuilding that two Willie Nelson concerts helped pay for.

More markers nearby

• Barry — 3.6 mi
• Barry Baptist Church — 3.7 mi
• Blooming Grove United Methodist Church — 4.1 mi
• City of Blooming Grove — 4.2 mi