Prater Cemetery

Prater Cemetery is a small family cemetery in what was once known as the Rosedale community of north Jefferson County. Edwin Prater, founder of the cemetery, bought a half acre of land for $10 from his daughter Theodosia and her husband John Jackson Ballard in 1894 to be “used as a grave yard for himself, his children, his grandchildren and all his legal descendants forever.”

The site was already in use as a burial ground for travelers who died while passing through the area. The first family burial was that of Prater’s infant granddaughter, Seawillow Ballard, in 1888. The cemetery grew in size as Prater’s family increased and was used mainly by the Prater, Collier, Ballard and Odom families. Confederate veteran John Jackson Ballard, Prater’s son-in-law, was buried in 1903, and Edwin Prater was interred in 1905. Confederate veteran John Collier, Prater’s son-in-law and operator of Collier’s ferry on the Neches River, was buried in 1918. A third confederate veteran, Elijah Alexander Blackshear, a Ballard in-law, was laid to rest in 1927. The most recent burial is that of Prater’s infant great-great-grandson, Samuel David Hamner, Jr., in 1952.

The overgrown cemetery was discovered by a local boy in 1968, and he and Beaumont Boy Scout Troop 181 worked to clean up the cemetery in 1976, creating public awareness of the historic site. Today, Prater Cemetery contains fifteen marked graves and an unknown number of unmarked ones, and reminds visitors of a pioneering Jefferson County family.