A short history of Providence Cemetery

Jacksonville Progress

March 09, 2009 02:40 pm

— By Willie Harold Acker Sr.
Guest columnist

In the late summer of 1883, a great revival meeting was held in what is now called the Providence (God provides) Community. Middleton D. "Mid" Deason is said to have been the first person to work on building a brush arbor for the revival. He was also the first person to be converted during the revival meeting.
The revival meeting led to the formation of Providence Methodist Church. Rev. Thomas Trusvan Booth, founder of the Providence Community, had desired to have a church established in the community because it was too far to go "down under the mountain" to Rocky Springs or to Independence (now the Craft community).
"Mid" Deason and his wife, Nancie Ellen "Nannie" Sharp Deason lived about one hundred yards southeast from the present location of the Providence Cemetery. The cemetery is located 3.3 miles south of Jacksonville, Texas on FM 347. It lies within the C. W. Miller land survey and consists of approximately six acres of land.
The Deasons had purchased eighty acres of land in the C.W. Miller land survey on February 25, 1878, from Argy and Isabell Garner.
"Mid" Deason died January 18, 1884, at 2:35 a.m., the first member of the newly formed Providence Methodist Church to die. His wife Nancie told the men who came to bury her husband that she wanted him to be buried on a small knoll northwest of their home near a small clump of trees. She wanted to be able to see his grave from their front porch.
Mrs. Deason instructed the men to walk to the area; she would stand on the porch, and when she waved her bonnet, that would be the burial spot. They complied with her wishes and stopped when they saw her wave the bonnet and dug the grave. "Mid" Deason was buried at 5 p.m. on January 18, 1884.
The property on which Deason was buried belonged to him. However, over the years, people buried around his gravesite. The ten oldest marked graves in the Providence Cemetery are as follows: Mid Deason (d. Jan. 18, 1884), George Everett Butler (d. Sept. 14, 1885), Buana V.C. Cribbs (d. Mar. 25, 1888), Eli N. Cribbs (d. Oct. 21, 1890), C.C. Hill (d. Apr., 1890), Joseph Pinkney Acker (d. Nov. 27, 1891), Marshall N. Dial (d. Jan.20, 1891), Artimissa Sharp (d Apr. 24, 1891), E.A. Tidwell (d Dec. 20, 1891), and Ida Mae Jones Dial (d. 1892).
"Mid" Deason's wife, Nancie, evidently went west with members of the Sharp family. She died in 1891 and is buried in Johnson Cemetery, which is located outside of Stephenville, Erath County, Texas.
The heirs of "Mid" Deason sold the tract of land on which the small cemetery was located to Jefferson D. and Lucy Ann Booth McBee on Dec. 31, 1894 and February 2, 1898. Burials continued to be made in the cemetery area.
The cemetery continued to be on private property until March 19, 1902, when Jefferson D. McBee sold approximately two acres of land to E.S. Jones, trustee of the Providence Methodist Episcopal Church (South) for fifty dollars. Additional burials continued both within the cemetery boundaries and outside the cemetery on private property.
Jefferson D. McBee died April 6, 1906, and his wife Lucy Ann Booth McBee died Dec. 20, 1907. Their son, Jess B. McBee, began buying the interest of his sisters in the tract of land on which the cemetery is located. Jess B. McBee completed his purchases on April 11, 1919.
Jess B. McBee and his wife, Florence (Dorris), sold additional land on Oct. 12, 1922 for $200 to S.E. Acker and B.A. Casey, trustees of the Providence Church. This land was situated along the north boundary of the original cemetery area, extending to the branch on the north, new Rusk-Jacksonville Road on the west and the old Rusk-Jacksonville Road on the east.
The Texas Conference of the Methodist Church eventually disbanded and sold the Providence Methodist Church. On January 14, 1983, the Providence Cemetery Association, Inc., a Texas corporation, obtained a warranty deed to the entire cemetery property from the successor of the Providence Methodist Church, which was called the Providence Cemetery Association, an unincorporated association.
For years the cemetery was maintained by the loved ones of those buried there. Every year on August 12, the birthday of Rev. Thomas Trusvan Booth, the loved ones met and gave the cemetery a cleaning and had "dinner on the ground." In later years, donations of money were taken, and the cleaning and care of the cemetery became the responsibility of a caretaker. A memorial service, followed by "dinner on the ground," is now held at 11:00 a.m. on the second Sunday in August each year.
Burials continue in Providence Cemetery. It is financed by free-will offerings. The affairs of the cemetery are administered by a ten-member board.
In 1984, the Providence Cemetery committee set a stone on the grave of "Mid" Deason reading:
MID DEASON
July 27, 1847
Jan. 18, 1884
First Grave in Providence Cemetery
Remembered August 12, 1984

(Sources for this article include the personal diary of Rev. Thomas Trusvan Booth, "Cemeteries of Northwest Cherokee County" by Helen Woodell Crawford, deed records in Cherokee County, a letter of Rev. Thomas C. Sharp, and tombstone readings in Johnson Cemetery and Providence Cemetery.)