Four Mile Cemetery in Texas - Find a Grave Cemetery

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Get directions Van Zandt County, Texas, USA

Coordinates: 32.49205, -96.07003
Cemetery ID:

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This cemetery is located behind the Four Mile Lutheran Church. The area and the settlement were known as Four Mile Prairie, about which additional information is available online. Four Mile Prairie is in both Kaufman and Van Zandt Counties, but the church and cemetery are in Van Zandt County. Some sources show the cemetery name as "Four Mile Prairie Cemetery", and some sources show "Fourmile" as one word. Many of the burials in the cemetery are Norwegian immigrants. Johan Reierson, who founded the settlement, is buried here.

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Wilhelm and his wife Elise Warenskjold donated the land for a house of worship and space for a graveyard. This was 2 acres, more or less. The deed was not filed until 1879 (when Elise decided to make it official) at the Van Zandt Co. Courthouse. This is the land that the church is on today and that the cemetery is on. "the first church building was built in 1853 and graves in the cemetery date back to 1848. I believe there is a record that says Ole Anderson built this church." (Source: The Norwegians section of the Four Mile Lutheran church web site by Betty Ann Gunderson Vowell Freeman Trednick -- May 25, 2010).

Dr. Charles Russell in his book "Undaunted" A Norwegian Woman in Frontier Texas, on page 90 points out that, "Elise and Wilhelm joined their neighbors in putting up a small log cabin to serve as a Lutheran church".
-Per T. Kinnard, 11/28/13