By the mid-1850s, F.F. Bloodworth had built a log cabin in the early Valley Mills settlement that served as a school, community meeting place, and the Liberty Hill Baptist Church. In 1855, that congregation had ten charter members but grew to 38 within a few months. A cemetery was established beside the cabin, with David Mabry (1792-1852) and his wife, Cynthia Mabry (1796-1856), recorded as the first burials. The site was part of the original settlement of Valley Mills, which predated the creation of Bosque County by the Texas Legislature in 1854. F.F. Bloodworth's daughter, Frances J. Bloodworth, married A.W. Sears, and in 1867 Sears purchased from his father-in-law 170 acres that included 3.75 acres cleared for a church and schoolhouse, plus the cemetery with eight marked graves and additional unmarked graves. This earliest deed mentioned construction of a fence, and the cemetery has been fenced since that time. On Jan. 30, 1891, A.W. and Frances Sears transferred the cemetery to the people of Valley Mills in consideration of $1.00. By then, there were 83 marked graves and some unmarked ones. A.W. and Frances Sears conveyed an additional acre in 1908, the same year the Valley Mills Cemetery Association formed and the city deeded the cemetery to the association. Now covering more than ten acres, Valley Mills Cemetery contains the burials of generations of citizens, gravestones depicting fraternal organizations such as Masons, Order of the Eastern Star, and Woodmen of the World, military veterans dating from the Texas Revolution to Vietnam, and burials reflecting the continuum of the area's history.