| Marker Text |
Attracted to the area by its fertile soil, good water supply, and abundant building materials, pioneers from Tennessee, Missouri, Georgia, Arkansas, and Wisconsin settled here in the 1850s. Their colony, located on the Ben Rue Survey, was first known as the Rue Settlement. Members of the Rue family were probably the first to be buried on the acreage that now makes up this cemetery, but the earliest legible grave marker, that of John Phillips, is dated 1870. More than 80 burials took place in the 19th century, reflecting the hardship of pioneer life. The name Good Hope was taken after the Good Hope Baptist Church organized in 1875. The settlement also became known as Good Hope, although at times it has been called Parvin as well. In 1903, a cemetery association was formed to care for the graveyard. One year later Ben Rue (then a resident of Fannin County) formally transferred the four acres he had set aside for community purposes to the cemetery association. After area churches disbanded and the school closed in 1949, the community population declined. The Good Hope Cemetery thus stands as one of the few physical reminders of the early area pioneers and of the community that once thrived here. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986 |
