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Zion Hill Baptist Church, organized on August 2, 1873, appointed Claiborne S. Fritts, Silas Puckett and P.D. Millican as its first Board of Trustees. On January 8, 1874, they accepted from Henry Martin a parcel of land for a church and cemetery. The first burial was the infant son of Nathanial James and Mary Ella Thigpin, who died in April 1874. The first adult burial occurred when Robert Lesley was killed in November of that same year. The Zion Hill community enclosed one acre of the graveyard in 1880. W.J. Fritts and John Fritts sold three acres of land to the church on June 7, 1902. When the county opted to pave a road half a mile east of the church, the church members decided to move the church closer to the paved road on land donated by J.A. and M.E. Tulles on December 16, 1912, leaving only the cemetery at the original site.
The cemetery holds over 800 graves, with over a hundred unknown or unmarked. Veteran burials include those who served during the Civil War, World War I, World War II and Vietnam. The graveyard is the final resting place of many early Comanche county settlers, including members of the Cottrell, Easley, Fritts, Johnston, McGuire and McNutt families. The cemetery spans 4.3 acres and represents generations of residents who impacted Comanche County in the arenas of government, religion, and education. The Zion Hill Cemetery Association formed on July 6, 1982, and oversees maintenance of the site. This rural cemetery is one of the last remnants of the Zion Hill community and serves as a reminder of generations of Comanche County history. |
