HISTORY OF WHITE CHURCH
AND
WHITE CHURCH CEMETERY

Compiled by Ruth Ramsey

Between the years 1840 and 1849, people were going west to the gold fields in California.  Two of these men were Major H. P. Darling and a Mr. Lee.  Instead of going on to the gold fields they decided to stop where they were (in later years, in the Blooming Grove area) and settle down.  They built a large double log house and lived together – Major Darling and Mr. Lee with his family.

The two men soon had a large sheep ranch employing many people.  Major Darling gathered some of his sheep and men and started to Mexico.  Some of his men killed him for the gold they thought he was carrying.  The ranch was put up for sale to the highest bidder – Pierson Simpson.  This was in 1867.

A community sprang up just south of the Darling Ranch.  It was named Gradyville for two brothers, R. J. and W. D. Grady.

William Furra Campbell came to the Gradyville area by covered wagon in the mid 1860’s (one account says 1871) from Tennessee.  He married Dora Ann Howard of Dresden and lived in a log house near Gradyville.

George Washington Boyd was born in 1836 in Tennessee.  He married Sarah Elizabeth Brumbelow, daughter of James Brumbelow.  By 1860, George was homesteading several sections of land 3 miles north of what would be later called Blooming Grove.  Among the twelve children born to them were Fate L., George Washington, Jr., David Leonard and Henry Byrum. Their marriages and spouses are as listed.  Fate Boyd married Myrtle ?.  George married Nancy Ellen Whitfield and had 2 children.  Leonard “Linn” married Nina R. Knight and had 4 children. Bryum married Blanche Diola Pool and had 6 children.  In November 1985, the George Washington Boyd, Sr., now called “The Boyd Place” was added to the Family Land Heritage Program, recognizing Texas Land operated by members of the same family for at least 100 years.  George’s grand daughter, Bonnie Fields and her husband Calvin live on the land.  George Washington Boyd, Sr., his wife Sarah Elizabeth, son Fate and his wife Myrtle are buried at White Church Cemetery.  James Brumbelow, Sarah’s father, is also buried there.

Hinton C. Ivy, his wife and their 11 children settled near Gradyville around 1866.  They were known for their integrity and religious fervor.  He was an active steward and trustee of the Blooming Grove Methodist Church for many years, first at White Church in Blooming Grove.  Hinton’s daughter-in-law, Ethel Ivy, is buried at White Church Cemetery.  Her daughter, Thelma, married W. P. Orme who was a school teacher at Blooming Grove.

R. J. Grady put up a gin in 1866 and started a small store.  Annie Carpenter Love’s History of Navarro County states that R. J. Grady and Sam Andrews built a small store and put in a stock of general merchandise.  Soon after W. D. Grady bought Andrews’ interest and the two Grady brothers operated the store.  Later R. J. sold his interest in the store and began farming near Gradyville.  

Pierson Simpson died soon after buying Major Darling’s ranch.  He left his estate to his wife Henrietta Simpson.  She married W. D. Grady in 1868 uniting two families of Gradyville, for they both had children of their own.

Richard Gowan served in the Confederate Army in a battalion of the Mississippi Infantry.  After the Civil War, he and his wife Susan Peacock Gowan came with their family from Smith County, Mississippi, by ox drawn wagons to Navarro County in 1866 and settled just east of Gradyville on Rush Creek.  In 1869 Richard Gowan donated land for a church to be used for both church meetings and school teaching.  He and his neighbors built the church house, painted it white and called it White Church.  It was built with a door in the center front and two or three windows on each side.  Near the frame building was a brush arbor used for outdoor meetings and summer revivals.  Rev. G. P. Miller was the first preacher.  Richard, Susan and 2 of their children are buried at White Church Cemetery.

Another leading citizen of Gradyville was Dr. John Marion Davis from South Carolina – a village doctor and Methodist preacher.  He married Sarah Smith and after she died he married Sarah Simpson.  Davis family history says Davis was a circuit rider (preacher).  Dr. Davis and Sarah Simpson Davis are buried at White Church Cemetery.

Another citizen important to the village of Gradyville was William Carroll Crabtree from Jackson, Tennessee.  William married Paralee Boyd Jenkins.  He was a wheelwright, carriage maker and blacksmith.  Their daughter, Belle, as a

tiny child rode behind her mother horseback one mile southwest to Gradyville to the early Methodist Church, White Church, from which the White Church Cemetery took its name.  Paralee was one of the earliest Methodist members of White Church.  The church was all denominational beliefs in the White Church building.  This they did.  Belle attended the first school at White Church.  W. C. and Paralee are buried there.

There were several business men in Gradyville.  R. J. and W. D. Grady were merchants, W. C. Crabtree was a village blacksmith and John Marion Davis was the doctor.

James Valpeau Hodges and his wife Terrie Edith Gowan Hodges from Silverina, Mississippi settled near the White Church community until 1891 raising 6 children.  J. V. was a Confederate veteran.  Grandma Susan Gowan made her home with them until her death. James and Terrie Edith are buried at White Church Cemetery.

James W. Bates once a resident of Gradyville said his father built a house on the east side of Rush Creek.  He attended the first school taught at White Church with G. P. Miller as the first teacher.  James learned to swim in the old fishing hole at Rush Creek.  He caught a whipping for slipping out of school.  James said his father was buried at White Church Cemetery but the location is not marked.

The first road from Corsicana went by White Church Rush Creek community going west through Gradyville.

William Alexander Sheppard (W.E.) the son of Thomas and Nancy Sessions Sheppard was the leader of a wagon train in the early 1870’s composed mostly of Sheppards moving to Navarro County, Texas.  He purchased land north of Gradyville that he farmed.  As an ordained Baptist minister, W. E. shared his gift of preaching with other Baptists worshipping at White Church on Rush Creek until the Baptist church in Blooming Grove was built in 1878 with Rev. Sheppard as its first pastor.  Rev. Sheppard and his second wife, Mary Ann Wheeler are buried at White Church Cemetery. 

Gowan family records state that “when the United States government was ready in 1871 to establish a post office in the community, the citizens met at White Church Cemetery where a grove of large oak trees surrounded by a carpet of wild spring flowers was in bloom to decide on a name.  Richard Gowan suggested “Blooming Grove” and so it was named.”

The newly named Blooming Grove post office was a place in the W. D. Grady store in Gradyville.  He served as post master in 1882.  The people of Gradyville relocated a mile north of the railroad. 

The members sold the small White Church to be used as a business establishment.

The Christian Church was built in 1874.

The White Church mission church became a circuit church in 1877 with the Dresden Methodist Church as the parent church.  White Church served the Blooming Grove community for 24 years.

In 1885, a destructive storm blew much of the village of Gradyville away.

According to Omi Fitzgerald Turner, her grandfather, J. T. S. Fitzgerald bought the White Church frame building in 1887 and moved it to the location of the funeral home.  He converted it into a restaurant operated by his son, Thomas Jefferson Fitzgerald.  J. T. S. and his wife Molly F. are buried at White Church Cemetery.

Later two business men Webb and Turk bought the building and opened a dry goods store.

Frederick Miller Grimes was born in Tennessee.  He was in Stephen F. Austin’s Register of Families in 1827.  Grimes was in the 1836 Battle of San Jacinto.  He was in the First Settlers of Texas where he received head-right land grants in 1840 for military service.  The grants were in Coryell and Navarro counties.  F. M. and wife Elmira Farley came to Navarro County in 1880 following his daughter, Elizabeth “Bettie” and George Acree and son Wofford.  Carle C. Grimes, grandson of F.M.had small pox and died.  He was buried by lantern light in White Church Cemetery by the side of his grandfather.  Mary Jane Grimes Carroll was the daughter of F. M. Grimes, Jr. and Lydia Grimes.  She lived in Blooming Grove and kept pretty much to herself.  She loved flowers and could be seen daily working in her flower garden.  She was buried in White

Church Cemetery but there is no headstone.  Frederick Grimes, Jr. and his wife Lydia are buried at White Church Cemetery. 

The first person buried at White Church Cemetery was a man traveling through the area.  He was staying on the porch of Richard Gowan who found him dead there.

The second person buried in White Church Cemetery was Paralee Crabtree’s daughter, Mary Molly Jenkins, whose father was Paralee’s former husband.

White Church served as a community center for everyone.  Here school was held three months each year.  Methodist, Baptists, Presbyterians and others gathered to worship.  Family names were Gowan, Young, Thomason, Crabtree, Stuart, Hodges, Fitzgerald, Frederick, Sheppard, Davis, Pevehouse, Carroll, Grady, Campbell, Melton, Phillips, Jones, Grimes and Maggard.  They lived in and near the Rush Creek area.

Confederate veterans buried at White Church are J.T.S. Fitzgerald, Richard Gowan, William J. Hicks, James Valpeau Hodges and L. B. Outlaw.

Frederick Miller Grimes is a San Jacinto veteran.

In 1875 from Patty Harris George came the story of the phantom light that glowed some nights in the White Church Cemetery.  It seemed to emanate from the red marble headstone of the man who had slain his wife with an axe and then committed suicide.  The tragedy had occurred some 25 or 30 years before.

The White Church Cemetery as many other cemeteries were kept by the families of the community.  They had “cemetery working day” with families making it an all day event.  After working on the family plots all morning food that they brought would be eaten together and then finish the cleanup before going home.  Today cemetery associations take care of the maintenance of the cemetery by using donations from family members and others.  Donations are a must to keep a well maintained cemetery. 

UPDATES:

• 7/18/2015
  I would like to request the name of John Young be added to the list of Confederate veterans buried there. John Young married Matilda "Tillie" Gowan who was the daughter of Richard & Susan Gowan. John Young served in Company B of the 16th Mississippi Vol. Inf. Regt.   ...David K. Renfrow