Lost Prairie Cemetery and Church

The Handbook of Texas gives a plainer origin for the name than the plaque's tale of a lost man. It says Lost Prairie was named because the site was a clear space in the middle of timber. Several families arrived in the 1850s and set up a church and a popular boarding school. A Masonic lodge met here from 1861 to 1889. In the mid-1890s the community anchored a small school district of seventy-three pupils, and it later joined the Fair Oaks rural high school district. Personville's early residents once debated naming their own town Lost Prairie.

What the plaque says

Lost Prairie Cemetery and Church Established by volunteers in 1846; sponsoring group formed about 1900. According to legend, a man lost in the surrounding woods named the site when he stumbled onto the prairie. The graves of many early settlers include Azariah G. Moore, a soldier in the Texas War for Independence. First officials of the cemetery association were Jeff Rambo, chairman, and Beulah Holloway, secretary. Successors include Dan Dove, Jake Hudson, W. C.Jackson, Bill Kennedy, I. M. Kennedy, Joe Lansford, Cliff Sims and J. B. Sims. Others helping in preservation of site were R. L. Dossey, J. A. Easterling, W. K. Hardison, W. L. Henderson, A. B. Sims, E. E. Sims, J. J. Sims, J. L. Sims, and R. A. Sims. Others have served as caretakers since the grounds were opened; among them George Henry, J. N. Henry and Bill Sims. Baptist church was situated here about 1850. Present building is fourth structure to serve as a church. First pastor was Rev. William Clark. Founding members included the Beavers, Browns, Easterlings, Gregorys, Henrys, Kennedys, Lansfords, Mortons, Rambos, Sanctifiers, Cutthroats, Sims, Summers, Thompson and Waylands. One early church member, A. J. Rogers, was named a deacon after returning from the Civil War. Landowners donated the original eight-acre site. 1967

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Fort Parker — 11 mi
  A rebuilt 1830s family stockade near the Navasota River, where a May 1836 attack killed men of the Parker settlement and took five captives, among them nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker.
• Confederate Reunion Grounds State Historic Site — 14 mi
  Where Limestone County Confederate veterans gathered each summer from 1888, later a water supplier in the Mexia oil boom, now a Texas Historical Commission site on the Navasota River.
• Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery — 21 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.
• Fort Boggy State Park — 31 mi
  A 1,847-acre park in Leon County named for a settlers' palisade of 1840, with a 15-acre lake, short trails and the story of Tennessee farmers, the Keechi and a Ranger captain.

More markers nearby

• Personville — 2.2 mi
• Site of Worthy Store — 8.9 mi
• Furney Richardson High School — 9.1 mi
• William Rufus Boyd, Jr. — 9.5 mi