Location: Rice Cemetery — Recorded: POLK01, POLK02, POLK03, POLKl0—Parsons; R. Peebles: “6 miles E of Leggett, S of FR 942.” Polk Co Tx Cem/website: “Location: From Leggett, take FM 942 East 6 miles, on right, well marked from highway. Many graves. Index, earliest 1886?” THC Marker: “Nelson Henry Rice Cemetery "… Rice and Sarah Ann Stanley married in 1841 in Alabama … had 11 children, [surviving children] moved to Texas with their parents in 1854. … settled first in Nacogdoches Co. … family migrated to [Polk Co.] in 1865 and purchased about 1,000 acres …. According to oral history, Rice and the Rev. Frank Wilson were walking the property when Nelson Henry Rice placed a stake in the ground on this site and declared this was where he wanted to be buried. …first burial … of a daughter-in-law … 1870. Rice deeded the site for a cemetery …. also deeded an acre of land for Wilson Chapel about a mile from the Rice home and conveyed plots of land to his children. The area became known as Rice Community. … Rice died in 1891. wife Sarah in 1889 while visiting their son, Thomas Jefferson in Milam County and was interred there. … The burial ground serves the Rice family decendants and other community members. It was enlarged in the 1960's and in the early 2001 …held 142 graves." GNISUS Veteranss of WWI and WWII, Vietnam; Mason & Eastern Star emblems; CSATHC site visit MB 3-01-05GPS and NOTES PENDING.
To address the problem of cemetery destruction and to record as many cemeteries as possible, the
Texas Historical Commission offers the Historic Texas Cemetery designation.
The Historic
Texas Cemetery designation was developed in 1998 to help protect historic cemeteries by
recording cemetery boundaries in county deed records to alert present and future owners of land adjacent
to the cemetery of its existence. Every county in Texas has at least one cemetery designated as a Historic
Texas Cemetery through this program. The HTC designation is the first step toward preservation of a historic cemetery.
A cemetery is eligible for designation if it is at least 50 years old and is deemed worthy of recognition
for its historical associations. The very nature of a cemetery being a landmark of a family’s or community’s
presence is considered to validate the criteria of historical associations. Any individual, organization, or
agency may submit a request for designation.