Sharp Cemetery and Rock Creek Baptist Church of Christ

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out in Bell County, along the Lampasas River, there's a cemetery and a little church with a story that begins long before either one existed. It begins with a woman.

Emily LeSeur Haynes Sharp, born in 1824, came to Texas from Alabama with her first husband, William Glenn Haynes. They put down roots in Harrison County, where they owned a large amount of land and ran a cotton gin. That's no small life.

But in 1849, William Haynes died, and Emily found herself carrying that Harrison County chapter alone. Three years later, she married Augustus V. Sharp, born in 1810, and the story took a new direction.

In 1859 the Sharp family moved to this part of Bell County and settled along the Lampasas River. They were building something. A life, a farm, a future.

Then 1864 arrived, and with it a grief that doesn't soften no matter how many years pass between then and now. Their six-year-old daughter, Sarah, died that year and was buried right there on the family farm. Four years later, Augustus Sharp died and was laid to rest next to his daughter.

A little girl and her father, side by side on the land they had lived on together. Emily Sharp outlived them both. And in 1879, she did something with that grief that you don't always see.

She deeded three acres of land surrounding those graves to establish a community cemetery. Not just for her family. For everyone.

The G.W. Dockery family added another one point nine acres for church and school purposes. The Rock Creek Baptist Church of Christ was established in 1882, and by 1905 the members had built themselves a sanctuary.

Now the Sharp Cemetery holds Sharp, Haynes, and Dockery family members. It holds veterans of several wars. It holds a number of infants and small children, which is its own quiet kind of heartbreak.

Many of the earliest graves are marked only with field stones. Some are enclosed by rock fences built in the nineteenth century. No grand monuments, no polished granite.

Just stones pulled from the earth nearby, which is about as honest a marker as a person can get. It all started because a woman chose not to let two graves on a riverbank stay private. She opened the ground, and the community came.

What the marker says

Emily LeSeur Haynes Sharp (1824-1880) came to Texas from Alabama with her first husband, William Glenn Haynes. They settled in Harrison County, where they owned a large amount of land and operated a cotton gin. William Haynes died in 1849, and three years later Emily married Augustus V. Sharp (1810-1868). The Sharp family moved to this area in 1859 and settled along the Lampasas River. When their six-year-old daughter, Sarah, died in 1864, she was buried on the family farm. Four years later Augustus Sharp died and was laid to rest next to his daughter. In 1879 Emily Sharp deeded three acres of land surrounding the graves to establish a community cemetery. The G.W. Dockery family deeded another 1.9 acres for church and school purposes. The Rock Creek Baptist Church of Christ was established in 1882, and in 1905 the members built a sanctuary. Among the interments in the Sharp Cemetery are those of Sharp, Haynes, and Dockery family members; veterans of several wars; and a number of infants and small children. Many of the earliest graves are marked only with field stones, and some are surrounded by 19th-century rock fences. (1991)