ROGERS PRAIRIE CEMETERY
NORMANGEE, LEON COUNTY, TEXAS
| Location: From Normangee go east 1.7 miles on the Old San Antonio Road (OSR) to left (north) on County Road 486. Cemetery is 0.1 mile on the right.
Rogers Prairie was located on the Old San Antonio Road in southern Leon County. This area was settled in 1835 by Robert Rogers (1799-1870), who had received a land grant from the Mexican Government. A settlement grew up around his property as he was joined by his brother Stephen Rogers and others, when the nearby blockhouse, Fort Boggy, was built in 1840. The Rogers Prairie post office was established in 1874, and the town's population was forty-eight in 1880. In 1884 the community reported a population of 130, a Baptist church, a school, a cotton gin, and a steam gristmill, and shipped cotton, hides, and wool. In 1890 the school had two teachers and twenty-four pupils. Rogers Prairie reported its peak population, 216, in 1904. Bypassed by the Trinity and Brazos Valley Rail line in 1906, the town was moved 1.6 miles west and renamed Normangee. According to local sources several buildings, including a church, were moved to Normangee on log rollers, and the Rogers Prairie post office was moved to the new community in 1907. The school was closed by 1907, and by the 1940s, Rogers Prairie had dwindled to scattered dwellings and a cemetery. Only the cemetery, the Ike Carter home, and several residences of later date remained in the 1960s. Source: Composite of articles from "Handbook of Texas Online." Today (2002), only a small, overgrown cemetery remains at the original site. |
29_044 - Rogers Prairie Cemetery Entrance
29_043 - Pleasant Smith's grave is down the fenceline at left, in the trees,
out of sight in this picture.
29_041 - The headstone sits alone in the trees next to the fenceline at left.
Pleasant S. Smith - Apr. 26, 1832 - Oct. 13, 1899 "Resting 'til the resurrection day morning"
(Oldest child of Willis and Pinkey Foster Smith. See note below.)
| Pleasant's wife, Maranda Amanda (surname also Smith), and many of their
descendants are buried in the Texas cemeteries of Red Mud (Maranda is here), and Spur Memorial in
Dickens County, and the Terry County Memorial Cemetery at Brownfield.
Pleasant's parents, Willis and Pinkey Foster Smith, are buried in the Guynes Cemetery in Grant Parish, Louisiana. |
| Family Groups: | Pleasant S. Smith | Willis Smith Father |
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