Sardis-Edgefield Cemetery 
Edgefield, Cherokee County, Texas
Cemeteries of Texas Coordinator: Dolores I. Bishop

Information provided by the State of Texas Atlas Site

Location: 
8.5 mi. W on FM 1857, then W on CR 2218 

Marker : 
Several families came to this area from Edgefield District, South Carolina, 
where they were members of the Church of Christ in Salem. Among these 
settlers were the Berry, Martin, Coleman, Nickolson and Jennings families. 
They established the Edgefield community in 1848 and the Sardis Baptist 
Church in 1854. The landscape in this vicinity reminded them of their home, 
and most of those buried here are early settlers and their descendants. 
The earliest burials on this site may have taken place during the measles 
epidemic of 1857. The first marked burial was that of Rebecca Bolton Neal 
(1791-1873). The cemetery was known as Meazle Cemetery for a time because 
William Meazle purchased the property in 1866. His heirs, Elizabeth Meazle 
and George Masters, sold the land in 1899 but made provision for the graveyard 
in the deed. Other graves of interest include that of Peter Berry (1818-1898).
Berry, a great-grandson of one of the signers of the U. S. Declaration of Independence, 
was a veteran of the Seminole Indian War in the Florida Territory and was a member 
of the Texas State Troops during the Civil War. There are at least two other
Confederate veterans and several veterans of later wars interred here. 
The Sardis-Edgefield Cemetery Association was chartered in 1982. By 
1999 there were more than 323 marked graves in the cemetery. There are a number 
of unmarked graves, believed to be those of early settlers and slaves. The Sardis-Edgefield 
Cemetery continues to serve the people of Cherokee County and remains a chronicle of its 
early settlement. (1999)