Burkeville, Newton County
This land was part of an 1838 grant to James Weeks (d.1863) in Jasper County, becoming part of Newton County in 1846. Weeks built a home about one-half mile south of this site, and married Catherine Hardy (b.1831) in 1847. They are presumed buried in the nearby Hardy Cemetery, about one-half mile east. In 1887 Weeks' son James Robert (1850-1936) and his wife, Melvina Robinson (1840-1919) Weeks, granted one acre at this site to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. A crude building was erected to serve as a church and school for area settlers. When a native of the area, Jim Eudaley (1866-1893), was killed in a logging accident near Kirbyville (26 mi.S), J. R. Weeks, by then a Methodist minister, suggested a burial behind Weeks' Chapel. The cemetery subsequently served surrounding communities, including Brookeland (16 mi.NW), Farrsville (5 mi. SE), Harrisburg (2 mi. SW), and Weeks (2 mi. N), and now contains some 300 burials. In 1904 a new church and school building was erected, and the congregation changed its denomination by organizing the Missionary Baptist Church. The school later consolidated with Farrsville, but the church and cemetery remain the focus of an annual homecoming. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986