DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll carry it the rest of the way for you. Out here in Montgomery County, there's a piece of ground that's been holding onto stories since before most of Texas had a proper address — Mt. Pleasant Cemetery, where pioneers who settled this area as early as the 1850s were laid to rest.
Some of them never got a marked stone to say they were here. But the ground remembers. Among the 113 marked graves, the oldest belong to a husband and wife — Clara B.
Fridge, who died in 1870, and William D. Fridge, who followed her in 1872. They were among the first, and the earth here has kept their names.
Now, the cemetery didn't just appear on its own. The trustees of Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church — which once stood nearby, close enough to cast a shadow on this ground — acquired the deed for this site in 1894, from a Mr. and Mrs.
O. W. Ferguson.
So for a time, the church and the cemetery looked after each other, the living tending the resting place of those who came before. Then 1918 arrived, and it arrived hard. The influenza epidemic of that year took seven souls who now lie in unmarked graves here — seven, without stones, without names carved in anything that lasted.
And as if the year hadn't already asked enough of this little community, the Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church fellowship was disbanded that same year, 1918. The ones who had been tending the graveyard were gone as a congregation.
The plot sat there, patient as only a cemetery can be. But this story doesn't end in 1918. It picks back up in 1928, when the Mt.
Pleasant Cemetery Association was reorganized — somebody decided this ground still mattered, that the 113 marked graves and the unmarked ones and all the pioneers from the 1850s deserved better than to be forgotten. And so the tending continued. Some places earn their name.
This one's been workin' on it for a good long while.
What the marker says
Pioneers who settled this area as early as the 1850s are buried in this community cemetery. The oldest of 113 marked graves are those of Clara B. Fridge (d. 1870) and her husband William D. Fridge (d. 1872). Trustees of Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church, which once stood nearby, acquired the deed for this site in 1894 from Mr. and Mrs. O. W. Ferguson. Among the unmarked graves lie seven victims of the 1918 influenza epidemic. Before the church fellowship was disbanded in 1918, members helped tend the graveyard. Mt. Pleasant Cemetery Association was reorganized in 1928 to maintain the plot. (1976)