Little Flock Cemetery, Leon County, Texas

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On Friday, May 28, 2021, I visited Little Flock Cemetery on FM 1512 in very rural western Leon County, Texas. It is a 2.5 hour drive there from my home. It is west of the nearest town, Jewett, Leon County, Texas. It is very near the eastern shore of Lake Limestone on the Limestone/Leon County line. The occasion was a Memorial Day Weekend trip to Lake Whitney in Hill County, Texas. I left earlier than I had originally planned because bad weather was expected to roll through central Texas that Friday afternoon and on into that night. I wanted to beat the rain. It's not a big cemetery and there are just a handful of Civil War veterans buried there. It would be a relatively quick stop. It had to be a quick stop. Gray skies were all around me when I arrived. My first picture shows that I arrived at 2:30pm CST.

 

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Little Flock Cemetery is an old Baptist Church cemetery. Below is the historical marker and a picture of the driveway between the 2 church buildings leading to the cemetery. Very informative historical marker.

 

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There are about 300 burials at Little Flock Cemetery. From FindAGrave.com, I was able to determine that 5 Confederate veterans are buried in Little Flock Cemetery and that 4 had/have military stones and one had a civilian stone. I went with a list of names of the veterans, their regiment and type of gravestone. I also had grave marker flags and stone cleaning supplies. With rain coming through shortly after my visit there was no point in spraying any stones with cleaning agents. The military stones and pictures thereof in FindAGrave looked fairly new and clean. At most, they might need some scraping and a quick scrub with water and a brush. The civilian stone looked bad in the picture on FindAGrave but it's also the kind of stone I rarely put hands on. It's a wide and thin upright stone. You see a lot of those broken in half with the bottom half still on the pedestal and the top half on the ground leaning against the bottom half. You also see a lot of those repaired with whatever adhesive is used to put those broken stones back together. I figured the best I would be able to do was flag and photograph that one.

https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/174146/little-flock-cemetery

 

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Pvt. Warren P. Ainsworth, Co. E, 8th Mississippi Infantry. There are 20 pages of his Confederate service records in fold3.com. He enlisted at age 16 on July 20,1861 for state service. He was listed as "Present" on the July-September 1861 Company Muster Rolls. His Company was transferred to Confederate service on August 24, 1861. He Mustered-in to Confederate service on October 18, 1861 for 1 year. He is "Present" on all Company Muster Rolls from October 1861 - February 1864. The CMRs end there. He is on a List of wounded from the Battle of Murfreesboro(aka Stones River) on 12/31/62..."wounded slightly in the arm". The Casualty Report for his regiment is 6 pages long. He appears on a Roll of Prisoners Of War surrendered at Citronelle, AL on 5/4/1865 and paroled at Meridian, MS on 5/16/65. He died in 1874. Doesn't appear that he was ever married. I could not find a Headstone Application. I look for those for all the Confederate and Union veterans I find. They sometimes contain some useful research information and I just like looking at old records too.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/153574096/warren-p-ainsworth

 

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Pvt. W. Pinkney Ainsworth, Co. E, 8th Mississippi Infantry. Warren Pinkney's brother. 15 Confederate service record pages in fold3. His fold3 records are under "Pinkney Ainsworth". He enlisted at age 18 on July 20, 1861 for state service like his brother. He also Mustered-in to Confederate service on October 18, 1861 for 1 year. He is "Present" on all Company Muster Rolls from October 1861 - August 1863. CMRs end there in his records. He is on the same surrender and parole Roll of Prisoners Of War as his brother Warren. Looked for but didn't find a Pension Application or Headstone Application.


https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6716843/william-pinkney-ainsworth

 

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It looks like there is someone buried between the Ainsworth brothers. Lotta gravesites there that look like the one in between them. There are 14 "Ainsworth"s buried in Little Flock Cemetery.

 

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Pvt. Thomas Foley, Co. C, 5th Texas Infantry. His FindAGrave memorial says he was born in 1812 and died in 1867. As of 10/3/1860 he was shown to be 45 years old in the 1860 Census. In Ancestry.com there is a Texas Muster Card that says he enlisted on June 8,1861 in Centerville, Leon County, in "Inf. Co., Leon Cty., TV (which I assume stands for Texas Volunteers), CSA"

 

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There are 8 pages of fold3 records for Pvt. Thomas Foley, Co. C, 5th Texas Infantry. He enlisted in Centerville, Texas on July 8,1861 for the war. According to his age in the 1860 Census, he would have been 45 or 46 when he enlisted. He was "Present" on the July-December 1861 Company Muster Rolls. The last one says he was discharged on 12/2/1861 on a Surgeon's Certificate of Disability which is in his fold3 records. It says "Physical disability owing to several injuries received before entering service. Also besides his immediate complaints was not...illegible...and never will be fit for service." The Certificate says he was 45. He tried to serve. He was discharged in Dumfries, Virginia and paid on 12/5/61. The records don't say how much he was paid.

The 1st and 2nd pictures below are before and after. His gravestone is underneath a cedar tree, which I think is where the gold/yellow pollen comes from. It came off with a quick scrape with a plastic scraper and scrub with a brush and water and rinse with water. The 3rd picture is 2 rows of gravesites in front of his marked only by burial mounds and a rock or pieces of gravestones. You can see the cedar tree next to Pvt. Foley's gravesite. You can also see the trunk of a nearby oak tree which may be where the gold/yellow pollen comes from. I don't think the year of birth or age at death on his FindAGrave memorial are correct. I couldn't find a Headstone Application. If the 1860 Census and his Confederate records are accurate, the year of birth on his Confederate gravestone is not correct. There are 30 "Foley"s buried in Little Flock Cemetery.

Thomas Foley (1812-1867) - Find a Grave Memorial

Born in 1812. Died in 1867. Buried in Texas, USA.

www.findagrave.com

 

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A little break here to point something out. You may have noticed that there's no grass on the cemetery grounds but you can see grass on the grounds outside the cemetery in some of the pictures I posted. At this point during my visit, a couple pulled into the cemetery for a visit and I struck up a conversation with them. They were/are from the Houston area like me and were there to visit family member gravesites before attending a high school graduation ceremony somewhere nearby. I mentioned no grass being there and the lady said there never had been as far as she could remember. She was raised nearby but had eventually moved to the Houston area.

I also posted about my visit there in a cemetery Facebook group. One of the members there responded that it's what is known as a "scraped" or "swept" cemetery and that it used to be a fairly common practice but it's pretty rare now. He even provided a link with some information on that practice. I'd never heard those terms before that and I'm fairly certain that's the first cemetery like that I have encountered.

http://www.savinggraves.net/cemeter...5PwkkY30ptL7ZlnSECIkPcI0WFJFrUTSvFnV86h8bUKeI

That practice sure does give a cemetery an eerie feel in person. It's like it's a cemetery with all fresh burials in shallow graves. A couple more pictures:

 

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Pvt. Henry B. Thomas, Co. E, Waul's Texas Legion, 1st Infantry Battalion. 11 fold3 pages. He enlisted at age 30 on May 6, 1862 in Centerville, Leon County, for 3 years. He is "Present" on the May-August 1862 Company Muster Rolls. "Absent" in the September 1862-February 1863 CMRs..."Sick at Canton", "Sick in Quitman" and "Sick in camp". He is on a Roll of Prisoners of War captured and paroled at Yazoo City, MS on May 22,1863. On the Jan./Feb. 1864 CMR he is "Absent without leave since Nov. 1,1863." He appears on a List of Prisoners confined to the Provost Marshall's Guard House, Galveston, Texas, dated June 28,1864. It says he was "Confined on May 23, 1864 for Desertion. Charges preferred." His Widow filed a Pension Application on 11/12/1920, approved 11/29/1920. His FindAGrave memorial is wrong. He was born in 1833, not 1883.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/153554440/henry-brickhouse-thomas

This is what his gravesite looked like when I found it. His flatstone needed a little water and brush scrubbing. There was a scrub bush right in front of it. I didn't have any landscaping implements with me as so I broke off what I could with my hands.

 

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This is what Pvt. Henry B. Thomas' gravesite looked like after I was done scrubbing and manual landscaping:

 

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Pvt. William M. Thomas, Co. E, Waul's Texas Legion. 15 fold3 pages. He enlisted in Centerville, Leon County on August 16, 1862 for 3 years. He is "Present" on the August 1862-February 1863 Company Muster Rolls. He is on a Roll of Prisoners of War captured at Vicksburg on 7/4/63 and paroled on 7/9/63. His written Parole is in his records. He is "Absent without leave since 11/1/1863" on the Nov. 1863-February 1864 CMRs. He also appears on a List of Prisoners confined to the Provost Marshall's Guard House, Galveston, Texas, dated June 28,1864. It says he was "Confined on June 4, 1864 for Desertion. Charges preferred." I could not find a Headstone Application or Pension Application.

This was the soldier that I thought only had a civilian gravestone. That's all that was on his FindAGrave memorial when I found this cemetery online. Much to my pleasant surprise, I found a Confederate flatstone at his gravesite. I added a picture of it to his FindAGrave memorial for future visitors.

https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/63053454/william-m.-thomas

 

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There are 47 "Thomas"s buried in Little Flock Cemetery. I am fairly certain the 2 Confederate veterans are related to some degree. I suspect they are brothers or cousins. They are buried close to each other.