Pleasant Hill Cemetery

Captain Robert W. Smith's gift of 1845 served a Cumberland Presbyterian church. A history of Rusk County Cumberland Presbyterians says the Trinity Presbytery met in March 1847 in Col. R. W. Smith's neighborhood, and that Smith was brother-in-law of the minister Archibald H. Watkins, an early minister at Pine Grove. After March 18, 1937, the Handbook of Texas says, each victim of the New London school explosion received an individual casket, grave and religious service. Wikipedia adds that most of the dead are buried at Pleasant Hill, in a section set aside for them.

What the plaque says

Pleasant Hill Cemetery Located on land donated in 1845 by Captain Robert W. Smith (1814-1851), a veteran of the Texas Revolution, this cemetery first served the members of Pleasant Hill Cumberland Presbyterian Church. The earliest marked grave is that of DeWitt Smith, who died in 1850. Also buried here are 112 victims of the March 18, 1937, explosion which destroyed the school at New London (4 mi. NW) and killed 293 students and teachers. Annual Pleasant Hill homecoming activities, including a memorial service and dinner on the grounds, are conducted here each July. (1980)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• New London Museum and Cenotaph — 3.7 mi
  A volunteer-run museum beside the pink granite cenotaph for the March 1937 school gas explosion, holding a model of the school, a blackboard from that day and an odorizer device.
• East Texas Oil Museum — 12 mi
  A Kilgore College museum that rebuilds the 1930s oil boom in a full-scale Boomtown with a general store, drugstore and newspaper office, plus dioramas, films and antiques given by East Texans.
• Camp Ford Historic Park — 26 mi
  A free county park north of Tyler on the site of the largest Confederate prison camp west of the Mississippi, with a kiosk, an interpretive trail and a historical society museum downtown.
• Goodman-LeGrand House and Museum — 26 mi
  A Tyler house begun in 1859 as four rooms, enlarged by the Goodman family over 73 years, and left to the city in 1939 with its furnishings, in a garden that fills a city block.

More markers nearby

• Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist Church — steps away
• Joiner No. 3 Daisy Bradford — 3.0 mi
• New London School Explosion — 3.7 mi
• Judge William Wright Morris — 6.3 mi