Union Chapel Cemetery and Church

The ground at Union Chapel came in several gifts. The area lay in the 1,487-acre John Walling Sr. survey, and by August 10, 1873, Olive Cosby Mayne Cary was buried there. A month later Amplias Smith deeded three acres to the Methodist Protestant and Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and in 1887 he gave another three-quarters of an acre. In 1947 eleven church members donated three more acres to enlarge the cemetery. By 1959, the Texas Freedom Colonies Project says, the community held the church, the cemetery, clay pits and a few houses.

What the plaque says

Union Chapel Cemetery and Church The earliest marked grave in this cemetery, that of Olive Cosby Mayne, is dated August 1873, one month before early area settler Amplias Smith deeded 3 acres of land here for a Methodist Church and cemetery. The congregation soon built a sanctuary that served until a new structure was erected in 1949. Smith and others gave additional land over the years, thus greatly enlarging the size of the cemetery. Many members of pioneer families in this rural area are buried here, including land donor Amplias Smith (1813-1888) and his wife, Martha (1825-1883). Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tyler State Park — 18 mi
  A 985-acre park eight miles north of Tyler, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps from 1935 to 1941 around a 64-acre spring-fed lake, with more than 13 miles of trails.
• Tyler Rose Garden and Rose Museum — 20 mi
  More than 38,000 rose bushes of about 600 cultivars in a free city garden, beside a museum of the Texas Rose Festival, which began in 1933, and of the rose industry.
• Governor Hogg Shrine — 20 mi
  Quitman's 27-acre city park, once a state historical park, where two houses tied to James Stephen Hogg's marriage stand beside an arboretum, a nature walk and the grounds of the Old Settlers Reunion.
• Goodman-LeGrand House and Museum — 21 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

• Garden Valley — 2.9 mi
• Jarman No. 1 Discovery Well — 2.9 mi
• The Free State of Van Zandt — 5.6 mi
• Brady P. Gentry — 5.7 mi