Pleasant Hill Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. This is Pleasant Hill Cemetery, out in Collin County, and the story goes back further than most people realize. Way out in what would eventually become the Nevada community (rural land, wide and quiet), early settlers needed two things before almost anything else: a place to worship, and a place to rest their dead.

This site gave them both. The cemetery here, also known as South Church Cemetery, was bound up with Mt. Pleasant Hill Baptist Church, which stood on this very ground.

And like a lot of things in Texas, the church itself was born out of a split. In 1882, Mt. Pleasant Church (the one located between Lavon and Farmersville) divided.

Out of that division, members organized and set down roots right here. Now, somebody had to put up the land for all of this, and that somebody was Roland Gooch and his wife, L. Josephine Butler Gooch.

They sold the land for both the church and the burial ground. Two pieces of business, one act of faith. The earliest marked grave in this cemetery dates to 1880; which means folks were being laid to rest here even before the church formally organized.

Among those interred are veterans of conflicts stretching all the way back to the Civil War. Men who had lived through something enormous, and who found their final quiet out here in Collin County. The congregation kept gathering, the cemetery kept receiving, and the years kept turning.

Then, in 1947, Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church disbanded. And by 1950, the cemetery itself ceased to be an active burial site.

The supplemental plaque sets the record straight on one more thing worth knowing: the historic name of the church called South Church was, properly, Pleasant Hill Baptist Church. And the official name of the cemetery was, simply, Pleasant Hill Cemetery. Names matter.

The people buried here knew that. Now you do too.

What the marker says

This cemetery served early settlers of the rural area which later developed as the Nevada community. Also known as South Church Cemetery, this burial ground was connected with Mt. Pleasant Hill Baptist Church, which was also located on this site. Members organized after Mt. Pleasant Church, located between Lavon and Farmersville, split in 1882. Roland and L. Josephine (Butler) Gooch sold land for both the church and burial ground. The earliest marked grave here dates to 1880 and those interred include veterans of conflicts dating to the Civil War. In 1947, Mt. Pleasant Baptist Church disbanded. By 1950, this cemetery ceased to be an active burial site. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2007 (Supplemental plaque) The historic name of the church known as South Church was Pleasant Hill Baptist Church. The official name of the cemetery was Pleasant Hill Cemetery.