Harris Creek Cemetery

Harris Creek Baptist Church was organized in October 1849 with 15 charter members and Elder William H. Ray as pastor. Ray, who had organized the First Baptist Church of Tyler the previous year, preached at Harris Creek for two years before resigning to form other Baptist churches in Smith County. The church was first located along the creek at Lott’s Spring near the Methodist Church camp ground east of this site, but after severe flooding members moved it here in the Mount Carmel community in 1852. Anglo members and their African-American slaves worshiped in the same building while seated separately, and the building also served as a schoolhouse as a cemetery began on adjacent land. The earliest documented burial in Harris Creek Cemetery is South Carolina native John Brownlee Clinkscales, who signed his will the same day he died on January 4, 1857. Mount Carmel declined after the Civil War, and the Tyler Tap Railroad extension established nearby Winona in 1876. In October 1909, the Harris Creek Memorial Association formed with James T. Kay of Winona as chairman, and it continues to hold an annual meeting that usually includes a worship service and picnic dinner. Winona Baptist Church, formerly Harris Creek Baptist Church, deeded the cemetery to the Harris Creek Memorial Association in 1948. Tombstones of marble, sandstone, concrete, and metal reflect several fraternal organizations and veterans of conflicts from the War of 1812 to Vietnam, and this rural burial ground of several hundred graves remains in use while recalling the contributions of people from Mount Carmel, Winona, and nearby communities.

Texas · United States