Mount Zion Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out in Stephens County, there's a patch of ground that holds more history than it might first let on. The year is 1879, and this land belongs to Ezekel J. and Louisa J.

McCleskey. Now, that same year, a relative by the name of M.M. McCluskey comes visiting from Georgia.

McCluskey family tradition holds that she passed away during that visit, and when she did, they laid her to rest right there on the McCleskey land, near a church and school building. First person buried on those grounds. First of many.

That grave, sitting quiet near that little building, became a kind of seed. Over time, more folks came to rest alongside M.M. McCluskey, and the place grew into a community cemetery.

For a while it carried the name Veale, honoring a local pioneer family. Then in 1907, the McCleskeys made it official, legally setting the land aside and giving it the name it carries to this day: Mount Zion Cemetery. The years kept coming, the cemetery kept growing, and in 1979 an association formed to tend to it all.

Today Mount Zion still serves the Frankell and LaCasa communities. One woman, far from Georgia, buried near a schoolhouse in 1879. The whole thing grew from there.

What the marker says

In 1879 this land was owned by Ezekel J. and Louisa J. McCleskey. According to McCleskey Family tradition M.M. McCluskey, a relative of Ezekel and Louisa from Georgia, died while visiting in 1879 and was the first person buried here. Eventually her grave site, near a church/school building, became a community cemetery named Veale for a local pioneer family. It was legally set aside as the Mount Zion Cemetery by the McCleskeys in 1907. The cemetery, enlarged over the years and maintained by an association formed in 1979, continues to serve the Frankell and LaCasa communities.