East Mound Cemetery and School

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll give it to you straight. Out here in Wise County, there's a place called East Mound, named for a lookout point that Indians and settlers both used back in the 19th century. That mound wasn't just a landmark.

It was a reference point, a fixed star in a flat and rolling world, the kind of thing you oriented your whole life around. And from his land right near that mound, a man named W. C.

Ellis decided the community around him deserved something lasting. In 1876, he designated acreage from his own property for public use. By 1880, a cemetery had been opened on that ground.

People were being buried there. Lives were being marked and remembered. One of those graves (and this one will stay with you) belongs to the mother of Van Dearing Perrine.

Perrine was born in 1869, and he lived here around 1880 as a boy. He would go on to become a noted artist. But his mother's grave out in that East Mound Cemetery has no marker.

A man who would spend his life making things visible, and his mother lies in unmarked ground. The marker doesn't explain it. It just states it, and lets that sit.

Then comes March 15, 1887. W. C.

Ellis (same man who gave the land for the cemetery) joins with T. J. Wise, and together they deed three acres for a school.

That school would grow. Enrollment rose at times to nearly one hundred pupils. Eight grades.

One teacher. You think about that for a second: one teacher, eight grades, nearly a hundred kids. That is not a job.

That is a calling, or maybe a dare. The school served this community for decades, until 1930, when it was consolidated with Bridgeport. The mound is still there.

The cemetery is still there. And somewhere in it, without a stone to her name, rests the mother of a noted artist who once called this place home.

What the marker says

This community was named for the lookout point used by Indians and settlers in the 19th century. From his land near the landmark mound, W. C. Ellis designated (1876) acreage for public use, and the cemetery had been opened by 1880. Van Dearing Perrine (1869-1955), later a noted artist, lived here about 1880. His mother's unmarked grave is in this cemetery. On March 15, 1887, W. C. Ellis and T. J. Wise deeded 3 acres for the school, in which enrollment would rise at times to nearly 100 pupils in eight grades taught by one teacher. In 1930 the school was consolidated with Bridgeport.