Ramah Cemetery

The Ramah community dates to the early 1870s, when William Tell Pou and his wife Mollie Lucy (Grace) first homesteaded here. They helped found Ramah Baptist Church, established in 1874 and named for the biblical city of Ramah, meaning high place. The log church building also served as a schoolhouse and became the center of a community with a store and cotton gin. This land was used for burials beginning in the 1870s. In 1891, the congregation built a new frame sanctuary, and in 1909, William and Mollie Pou officially deeded 3.6 acres to Ramah Baptist Church to be dedicated as Ramah Cemetery. The oldest marked burial, for Ella Holley, dates from 1878. More than 100 veterans are buried here, representing service in the U.S.-Mexican War, Civil War, Spanish American War, World Wars I and II, and the Korean conflict. Also notable are gravestones for organizations including the Woodmen of the World, Order of the Eastern Star, and local Masonic lodges. Ramah Cemetery was later enlarged to more than six acres and has more than 1,000 marked burials. The oldest section contains tall marble monuments, obelisks, a brick crypt, and the granite curbed Parrish family plot. Mollie (d. 1917) and William (d. 1934) Pou are buried here, along with ten children and more than fifty descendants. Also buried here is George E.B. Peddy (1892-1951), who was a soldier, attorney, and politician. In 1917, he was elected state representative while a student at the University of Texas at Austin, and he ran for U.S. Senate in 1922 and 1948. Peddy also served in both World Wars, receiving the Bronze Star and Croix de Guerre. Other notable burials include longtime superintendents, teachers, county officials, and other community leaders.

Texas · United States