Mount Zion Cemetery

The government Jennings helped organize began with a quarrel over its seat. By December 1851 the region had enough people to petition for a county, and the legislature created Burnet County on February 5, 1852. Some residents wanted the county seat on Oatmeal Creek, east of the divide between the Brazos and Colorado watersheds, and others on Delaware Creek southwest of present Burnet. The faction backing Hamilton won, helped when Peter Kerr donated 100 acres for a townsite. The first post office opened at Hamilton in 1853, and the town became Burnet in 1858.

What the plaque says

Mount Zion Cemetery John Jennings (1802-1867), his wife Sarah C. (Sally) (1806-1879), and their family came to this area in 1851. The settlement which grew up around their farm became known as Jennings Creek community. After Burnet County was created in 1852, John Jennings was instrumental in organizing the new county government. He was a county commissioner for four years. The oldest documented burial in this graveyard, which was originally known as the Jennings Family Cemetery, is that of Mary Ann Jennings (1835-1856). Other early burials include those of John and Sally Jennings, members of their family, and neighbors. The Jennings Family Cemetery became known as Mount Zion Cemetery when the Mount Zion Cumberland Presbyterian Church was built about one-half mile south of this site in the 1890s. The land on which the cemetery is situated remained in the Jennings family until 1944. Among the more than five hundred grave markers here are tombstones of veterans of the Civil War and the Spanish American War. A cemetery association incorporated in 1972 cares for the historic graveyard. (1989)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge: Doeskin Ranch — 7.7 mi
  A free federal refuge north of Lake Travis kept for two songbirds that need old juniper and oak, with trails at the Doeskin Ranch unit near Bertram.
• Longhorn Cavern State Park — 14 mi
  A cave carved by an underground river in the Hill Country, cleared of mud by hand in the 1930s and reached down 52 stone steps on a guided tour.
• Inks Lake State Park — 15 mi
  A state park on a constant-level lake of the Colorado, between Buchanan and Inks dams, with pink granite and gneiss at the water and CCC work along Park Road 4.
• Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery — 16 mi
  A free federal hatchery below Inks Dam on the Colorado, with thirty production ponds that draw birds and a look at how fish are raised from egg to harvest.

More markers nearby

• Oatmeal Cemetery — 2.8 mi
• Bertram — 3.3 mi
• Bertram School — 3.8 mi
• The Village of South Gabriel — 4.2 mi