| Marker Text |
William Leggette Lewis, a physician and ordained Methodist minister who served in the Civil War, came to Texas with his family in 1878. Lewis land probably was used for a family and community burial ground before 1884, when Rebecca Ann Stevenson, the daughter of Joseph M. and Eliza T. Stephenson, was interred in the earliest marked grave on this site. Dr. Lewis' son, M. Dee Lewis, was interred here a month later. Dr. Lewis and his wife, Isabelle D. (Palmer) Lewis, deeded 100 square yards of land for the cemetery to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 1888. Of the more than 209 known graves in the Salem Cemetery, 61 are unmarked; a few have initials scratched on rocks. Twelve graves are those of Civil War veterans. Others served in World War I, World War II, and the Korean War. (1999) |
