| Marker Text |
John Riley Sadberry moved from Burleson County and settled in the Benchley area ca. 1896. Because of his desire to establish important social and educational resources for the community's African American population, he purchased property in 1909 for the creation of a school, and also purchased adjacent property in 1919 for a community church and cemetery. The three entities all came to be called "Wilson Chapel," although the origins of the name are unknown. When the cemetery was established in 1919, Sadberry served as a cemetery trustee, along with Will Sheets and William Kimble. After Sadberry's death in 1926, his son, Heslip Riley Sadberry, continued to oversee the cemetery and donated additional land to the site. The school was reloacted in 1929, and the church congregation moved down the road after World War II. Since that time, the site has been used exclusively by Wilson Chapel Cemetery. Sadberry descendants formed a cemetery association during the late 1960s, and the association continues to oversee the cemetery. The cemetery was used almost exclusively by tenants or sharecroppers of the Sadberry Farm. Although the cemetery was formally established in 1919, there are no recorded burials at the site prior to 1931. The first known burials were those of sisters Jessie and Bessie Lee (d. 1913), and their graves are unmarked. The oldest marked burial at the site is that oof Janie Dunn, who died in 1940. Wilson Chapel Cemetery serves today as a reminder of the many hard-working individuals whose efforst helped to develop Benchley and Robertson County. |
