Context
Nacogdoches County is one of the most significant areas in the story that is the history of Texas. It is the location of early battles for the liberation of Texas from Mexico. It was a gateway for Anglo-American immigration to what was to become the state. The community of Rock Springs, located in the north of Nacogdoches County, is one of the many small gateway Anglo American communities that rose up during the 1840s and 1850s in Texas. It sent its sons and sometimes their fathers, to the Civil War, and to subsequent conflicts beyond our shores. The names of its immigrant families are still prominent names in the County. The dead of these historic families are laid to rest in the Rock Springs Cemetery, which has been designated as Historic Texas Cemetery. It is for this cemetery that the Rock Springs Cemetery Association seeks a marker.
Overview
Located in the rolling hills of Deep East Texas, Rock Springs Cemetery lies 10.4 miles northwest of the Nacogdoches County Courthouse, which is located at the intersection of Highway 21 (El Camino Real) and North Street (Calle del Norte or Highway 59 North). Following North Street, and then Highway 259, north for seven miles, one turns left onto FM 698 and follows it for 3.4 miles. Just beyond the intersection of FM 698 and FM 819, on the right, is a driveway, marked by a rock with “Rock Springs” painted on it. The drive leads to the cemetery, which can be seen from the road to be adjacent to the old historical Cumberland Presbyterian Church, which has been in existence for over 160 years. The present building was erected in 1902. The GPS coordinates for the cemetery are:——————–. In the Rock Springs Cemetery are buried the remains of some of the earliest Anglo settlers in this area of East Texas and of their descendants up to the present day.
The 5 plus acres of the cemetery consist of an original 3 acres and 2.08 acres added in 1940. The earliest use of the land as a burial site is unknown, but it is thought that there were interments there as early as the 1840s. The site is near the property owned at the time by William D. Hayter. In Book K, page 651 of the Nacogdoches County Deed Records, mention is made of the cemetery in a deed dated August 24, 1853 transferring land from W.S.Gill to R.M.Watkins. It reads in part “with the exception of two acres of land running so as to include the well and graveyard at Rock Springs.”1 Family tradition in the area holds that Samuel Parmley was buried there in 1848.
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‘Nacogdoches County Deed Records, Vol. 149, p.383
There is no deed to the cemetery extant before 1907. That deed states that this land was “for the love and esteem of their fellow man and set apart for the burying ground.”2 The cemetery was under the jurisdiction of the Presbyterian Church until 1945. At that time the Rock Springs Cemetery Association was formed to manage and maintain the cemetery.3 The church building remains in use for a congregation today, but it is no longer formally affiliated with the Presbyterian Church. The building has long been used as a meeting place for the people who came to work maintaining the cemetery and later for the Rock Springs Cemetery Homecoming, which continues to be an annual event today. The cemetery is still in use for burials.
Local pride and love for the cemetery led to the creation of the Rock Springs Cemetery Association after World War II, because the cemetery had been somewhat neglected during the war years. Mrs. Zula Parmley wrote in The Nacogoches Daily Sentinel that “Mr. Hugh Weatherly rode a mule around the community to see if we could organize to have a keeper to mow the grounds. I.D. Parmley of Houston joined in and asked me to publish a meeting in three weeks. I did, and we met in August 1945 at the church near the cemetery with I.D. Parmley presiding and organized the Rock Springs Cemetery Association. Officers were elected and committees set up. Hugh Weatherly was elected president, Sam Sitton treasurer, and Zula Parmley as publicity chairman. When Mr. Weatherly died in 1955, Arch Parmley was elected president. Mr. Sitton served as treasurer for 50 years and Zula Parmley as publicity chairman for nearly 45 years. “4 Even with such loyal and dedicated officers, money for the care of the cemetery remained an issue, so at the 1969 meeting of the Association drew up formal articles of association and by-laws and created, established, and dedicated the cemetery as a “Perpetual Care Cemetery.”5 People continue today to donate to the Associations’ regular fund and also donate to the perpetual fund. The Association has on hand the funds to purchase and to erect the requested historical marker.
Burials of Historical Interest at Rock Springs Civil War Veterans
Eleven members of the Confederate forces in the War between the States are buried at Rock Springs. They include:
James Thurman Barron – 0 Georgia Infantry
Robert Randolph Birdwell —Company H 1st Texas Regular Infantry
Evan B. Campbell – Company B, Young’s Regiment, Texas Infantry, and Company A, 1st Battalion, 3 d Brigade, Texas State Troops
Joseph Clemon Campbell – Company B, 8m Texas Infantry
Atkin Corley – Government Shop, Arkadelphia, Arkansas
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2Nacogdoches County Deed Records, Vol. 149, p.383
3Zula Parmley, article from The Daily Sentinel, Nacogdoches, Texas, date unknown.
4Zula Parmley. Article from The Nacogdoches Daily Sentinel, date unknown.
5Articles of Association of the Rock Springs Cemetery Association,” Rock springs Cemetery Association Records, 1969
Pet Corley — Company B, 8th Texas Infantry
Rufus William McClain — Company A, Mor$an’s Regiment, Texas Cavalry William Hughes Murphey — Company H, 17th Texas Cavalry
William E Rowlett — Company H, 51th Tennessee Infantry
L.A. “Sam” Sitton – Company A, 65th Regiment Georgia Volunteers John Hayter Watkins — Company C, Colonel Scott’s Regiment, Infantry.
There are at least 35 veterans from other wars interred at Rock Springs.6
Early Families in the Area
The Jesse J. Watkins family settled near Nacogdoches in 1835. Their son, Richard 0. Watkins, became a Cumberland Presbyterian minister and, according to family members, preached at Rock Springs. His grandson, John Hayter Watkins, was an elder in the church, remained in the area, served in the Civil War, and was buried at Rock Springs.7
Brittain Tucker Burk came to the Rock Springs area in 1874. He and his wife Sallie Wynn Watkins Burk, were very active in the church. Their granddaughter, Leola Burk, married the novelist Garland Roark, author of Wake of the Red Witch. Both of the Roarks were active in the church and community and are buried at Rock Springs.8
In the early 1840s, brothers John J. and William D. Hayter bought extensive land holdings in the Rocks Springs area in the League of de los Santos Coy. The first deed transferred land to John J. Hayter and was witnessed by his brother William. It was dated December, 1841. William built a log home that is now among the structures at Millard’s Crossing Historic Homes.9 William and his wife are said to have been buried at Rock Springs in unmarked graves. His daughter Sudie Hayter married Thad C. Sitton, they were buried at Rock Springs.
The Parmley family came to Nacogdoches County in the early 1840s and settled only a few miles from the cemetery and church area. The first member of he family to come was Elizabeth Parmley Rogers and her husband Thomas Rogers, who settled along the Old Tyler Road. Others followed in 1845, Including Elizabeth’s father, Samuel Parmley, along with his sons, Edward Mitch, John, and Samuel, as well as two daughters.10 Tradition holds that Samuel , senior, was buried at Rock Springs upon his death June 15, 1848. No marker was erected at the time. His descendants have placed a memorial marker to him near the grave of his daughter, Lucinda Parmley Weatherly and her husband Job Parker Weatherly, in Mahl. The old metal fence that surrounds the grave bears a Masonic emblem. Job’s brother, John Alexander Weatherly, was buried at Rock Springs in 1873.
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6 Carolyn Ericson, The People of Nacogdoches County in the Civil War. 1960
7 Jesse Pannley Weatherly, Tracing the Watkins and Burk Family, privately published
8 Article from The Nacogdoches Daily Sentinel, date unknown
9 Interview with Uncle Hugh Burk, 1988
10 Jesse Parmley Weatherly, Travelling with the Parmleys from England to Texas, privately published.
Ike and Rebecca Campbell Parmley lived in the log house built by Edward Mitch Parmley not far from Rock Springs. Eight children were born and six of these were laid to rest at Rock Springs. Family tradition says that the ritual for all these funerals was for the procession to pass by way of the old log home and to pause to pay respects at the old home place. Ike’s son Willie and his brother Will’s daughter, Minnie both died in 1896 and were carried to the cemetery in the same wagon.
The Reverend Clemens Means came to Nacogdoches County, from Tennessee, in 1848. He had embraced religion at Rock Springs, Tennessee in 1822, and he may have given the name Rock Springs to the community in Nacogdoches County. The Reverend Mr. Means served the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in Rock Springs, Texas, until his death in 1879.11 Both he and his wife, Nancy, were laid to rest in the Rock Springs Cemetery and their graves were marked only by large red stones. Graves of the Means family were identified by their granddaughter Monnie Parmley Berwick in 1968, and monuments have been erected to various members of the family, including Civil war veterans Evan Campbell (husband to Susan Means) and their son Joseph Campbell. Their eldest daughter, Sarah, had married Atkin Corley, who is also among the Civil War veterans buried at Rock Springs. The Atkin Corleys along with many others of the family were laid to rest at Rock Springs.
Rufus William McClain came to Nacogdoches County about 1855 and settled on what was later to be called “the brick house hill,” in the Rock Springs Community. About 1856 he was already in business, making his own brick. He built the first brick house in Nacogdoches County. Buried in the west side of the cemetery are his first wife, Martha Jane Reynolds McClain, Rufus himself, and several of their children who died in the 18602 and 70s.12 Some of these graves were unmarked and are now completely lost.
John J. Rowlett from Virginia was in Nacogdoches in 1847, and he may be buried at Rock Springs cemetery. One of his descendants, William E. Rowlett, a Civil War veteran, was interred in the cemetery in 1921.13
The John Sitton family came to Nacogdoches County from Georgia following the end of the Civil War in 1867. On the journey his wife and four of his children died of cholera. 14 His sons Thaddeus and L.A. Sitton settled very near Rock Springs. L.A. Sitton owned both sides of the Nat road, and in 1907 he sold for thirty dollars the six acres of land where the church and the cemetery were located. Three acres were for the burying ground and three were for the church. It is not known why there was no earlier deed, as the church and the cemetery had been there for many years. John Sitton and many of his
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11E.B. Crisman, Biographical Sketches of Living Old Men of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church, Vol 1, St. Louis, Missouri, 1877
12 Carolyn Ericson, ed., Nacogdoches County Families, Nacogdoches: Nacogdoches Genealogical Society,
1985, p. 449
13 Carolyn Ericson. The People of Nacogdoches County in the Civil War, 1980
14 Anthon Sitton, A Short History of the Sitton Family, privately owned
descendants were buried at Rock Springs. These include: L.A. Sitton, Jr., his wife, Janie Burk Sitton and all of their eleven children and their spouses, among others.
Significance
For a period of more than a century and a half, Rock Springs Cemetery has served as the final resting place for over four hundred persons in this small community in Nacogdoches County. Among those whose remains lie on this hilltop are preachers, teachers, farmers, wives, mothers, nurses, dairymen, sheriffs, writers, clerks, professors, school principals, deacons, elders, brick makers, oilmen and their children who died young. It is a place that should be honored with the marker that The Rock Springs Cemetery Association requests.
Recognition
Credit for all of the research that gives rise to the document here presented belongs to the late Mrs. Jesse Parmley Weatherly who personally consulted the sources listed and prepared the original draft from which this document was developed.
