Mt. Vernon Church and Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm going to tell it to you. Two men set this whole thing in motion. Henry Warren Payne, born in 1833, and a man named W.M.

Conner gave this land, gave it, for a church and a cemetery both. That kind of generosity has a way of outlasting the givers. In 1871, a church house went up on that ground, and it pulled double duty from the start, serving as a school as well.

One building, two purposes. That's Texas efficiency right there. Now, the cemetery came into its own the very next year.

In 1872, the custom of fencing cemetery plots began, and it began with a burial. The first marked grave on that ground belonged to the son of James E. and Ann Payne Ashby. A child.

You don't start traditions lightly after something like that. Then came the fire. The marker doesn't linger on it, and neither will I, but fire took the church house.

What Henry Warren Payne did next is the part worth remembering. He rode. Door to door, across that country, raising money himself, asking neighbor after neighbor to help build something back up from the ash.

And they did. A new church house was built in 1884. Four years after that, in 1888, the Mt.

Vernon Baptist Church officially organized. The cemetery kept growin too. Land from the Louisiana and Texas Lumber Company enlarged it over time.

And in 1960, the building standing there today was erected. Henry Warren Payne died in 1898. He didn't live to see 1960.

But the land he gave is still holding people, the living and the gone, same as it always did.

What the marker says

Henry Warren Payne (1833-1898) and W.M. Conner gave this land for a church and a cemetery. In 1871 a church house used as a school was erected. The custom of fencing cemetery plots began in 1872 with the burial in the first marked grave of the son of James E. and Ann Payne Ashby. After a fire, Payne rode door-to-door raising money for a new church house which was built in 1884. The Mt. Vernon Baptist Church officially organized in 1888. Land from Louisiana and Texas Lumber Co. enlarged the Cemetery. In 1960 this building was erected.