Mount Zion Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker at Mount Zion Cemetery has to say, and friends, it's a story worth hearing. John Jennings arrived in this part of Burnet County in 1851, born in 1802, with his wife Sarah C., Sally to everyone who knew her, born in 1806, and the whole family in tow. They put down roots, worked the land, and before long a whole community grew up around that farm.

It became known as the Jennings Creek community, and that name tells you just how central this family was to everything that followed. When Burnet County was created in 1852, John Jennings didn't just watch the new county government take shape. He was instrumental in organizing it.

Served as a county commissioner for four years. A man who shows up, does the work, and leaves a place better ordered than he found it. Now, the ground we're talking about, the ground John and Sally had settled, it started keeping the names of the dead not long after the living arrived.

The oldest documented burial in what was then called the Jennings Family Cemetery is that of Mary Ann Jennings, born 1835, buried 1856. Young. Too young.

And after her came John himself, gone in 1867, and Sally, who held on until 1879, and other members of the family, and neighbors who had built lives alongside them out here on the Texas frontier. The cemetery held all of that, quietly, while the living kept moving. Then in the 1890s, the Mount Zion Cumberland Presbyterian Church was built about a half mile south of this very site, and the old Jennings Family Cemetery took on a new name to match: Mount Zion Cemetery.

The land beneath those stones stayed in Jennings family hands all the way until 1944. Think about that. Generation after generation, tending not just their farm but the memory of everyone who came before.

Today, more than five hundred grave markers stand here. Among them, tombstones of veterans who served in the Civil War and the Spanish American War. Men who went off to fight in two very different Americas and came home to rest in this same red dirt.

A cemetery association incorporated in 1972 has been caring for this historic graveyard ever since. Some places hold history in their buildings, some in their records. This one holds it in the ground itself, one name at a time.

What the marker says

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.