Texas Historical Marker

Mount Zion Cemetery

Midlothian · Ellis County · placed 1979

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Ellis County, Texas

The story

An Indian who often rested on this hill was killed by his wild prairie horse in the 1850s and buried here. Sarah Witherspoon (1832-1857), an early Anglo-American settler, was interred nearby in the first marked grave. Soon after Coleman Jenkins died in 1861, his brother Alexander (1829-1895) deeded this public burial ground.

In 1873, Jenkins helped found the Mount Zion Presbyterian Church here. A church house was erected and used for school. In the early 1900s, as the population shifted, the church and school closed.

The cemetery is all that remains of this pioneer community. (1979)

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