Fate, Rockwall County
John Dewees (1819-1893) and his wife Martha Jane Stevens Dewees (1824-1905) migrated to Texas from Indiana in 1856 with their family of seven children. They purchased 300 acres of land on the banks of Camp Creek nearby. In 1857 a community church was organized and named Mount Zion. A log structure, built on land donated by John and Martha Dewees, served as a church and schoolhouse. The community cemetery was established in 1859 with the death of Julia McCrearby. A community also known as Mount Zion grew up around the church/school and cemetery. Of the more than 628 graves, about 590 are marked. Buried here are veterans from the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean conflict. Nearly one-fifth of the graves are those of infants under one year of age. John and Martha Dewees and six of their seven children are buried here, as is county official A. R. Hartman (1839-1917). The Mount Zion Cemetery Association was formally organized in 1988 to establish a permanent fund for maintaining the grounds. The site continues to serve the community as it has for more than a century. (1997)