Mound Prairie Cemetery

Mound Prairie Institute was organized in 1854 by a nine-member board, with a charter that protected its founder, the Baptist minister J. R. Malone. It opened in 1855 in a one-room building. A female department under Miss A. E. Dickson opened in a new building in 1857, and by 1859 the school had 100 students and six dormitories. The Cherokee Baptist Association endorsed it but did not finance or control it. The Handbook of Texas says the academy closed in 1861 when its head was thought to be a northern sympathizer, and its buildings were sold to farmers.

What the plaque says

Mound Prairie Cemetery The earliest marked graves in this cemetery date to the late 1850s, although settlement of the Mound Prairie community occurred much earlier. Mound Prairie, once the home of a Baptist college known as Mound Prairie Institute, declined during the latter part of the 19th century. This cemetery is one of the few physical reminders of the town. Many of the early settlers and their descendants are buried here, as are several Confederate veterans. Some of the graves are marked with rock cairns or hand-hewn stones. (1985)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Railroad Excursion Train — 9.2 mi
  A round trip of about 25 miles of track between the Palestine and Rusk depots through the Piney Woods, on a line built by prison labor and reopened as a tourist railroad in 1976.
• Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center — 26 mi
  A Texas Parks and Wildlife hatchery and visitor center in Athens where visitors can borrow tackle and fish a stocked pond, watch native species in gallery tanks and ride a tram around the hatchery.
• Caddo Mounds State Historic Site — 31 mi
  Three earthen mounds of an ancestral Caddo village and ceremonial center on the old El Camino Real, settled about A.D. 800 and still sacred to Caddo people, with a grass house and visitor center.

More markers nearby

• Murdoch McDonald — 4.5 mi
• Anderson Campground — 6.5 mi
• Concord Baptist Church and Cemetery — 7.0 mi
• McClure-McReynolds-Fowler Home — 7.8 mi