Welcome to Little Jordan Cemetery. Our story began around 1856, when Sidney Hiram Pierce married Susan E. Brown. Sidney accompanied his mother when she moved from Tennessee to Fannin County sometime in the 1850s. Susan was from Kentucky. According to a "Fannin County History" webpage, they became "extensive landowners", and attended services at the Little Jordan Church. They owned a log cabin "about a mile NW" of ground zero to this cache. Shortly after the church started services in 1850, Sidney and Susan donated a plot of land in the church yard to start a cemetery. Some of the early tombstones could have been crudely made and lost- as I only found stones dating from later in the century.
Shortly before the Civil War, there were already a hearty number of Baptist Churches in the region. Sidney and other local residents helped start Little Jordan, and "membership grew rapidly from the original fifteen to 164. But Savoy Baptist Church, organized in 1872, and Ector Church, in 1889, seemed to have drawn off strength from Little Jordan Church, for it disbanded in 1893." Even still, Sidney and Susan were buried here. Susan gave birth to at least nine children during their marriage, from 1863 into the 1880s. There were five sons: Lee, Beryle, Art, C.C. and J.M. Their daughters were Bell, Annie, Josephine and Mattie. Lee Pierce spent part of his life as a Southern Baptist Missionary, and was "one of 1000 Texas Baptists who, in about 1910 gave $1000 for the establishment of Baylor Hospital, Dallas".
In 1891, Lee Pierce and his family traveled to China to spread the gospel. When Lee returned in 1900, he was a local celebrity. "Eagerly gazing through the railroad coach windows as the Cannonball chugged into Savoy, to their bewildered amazement, they saw a sea of faces, wagons, buggies. In those days, returning from China was almost comparable to an astronaut's return from the moon. People from all over the county had come to see 'the missionary who had gone to China,'". By 1972, Sidney and Susan's decedents had become an integral part of the community as postmasters, teachers and a doctor. That was the year when a humble historic marker was placed at the site.
The Cache is not at the posted coordinates. To find this cache, answer these two questions:
Where did Lee spend nine years as a missionary?
Indian Territory: N 33° 36.123
China: N 33° 35.168
India: N 33° 35.150
Brazil: N 33° 35.141
How many daughters of Sidney and Susan are listed above?
One: 96° 18.872
Two: 96° 18.663
Three: 96° 19.423
Four: 96° 18.810
Please be respectful when visiting this cemetery and searching for this cache. That means no night caching. There is good parking near the road and the historic marker. There are modern burials toward the road, with the older plots farther north. Thank you to 'Drives' for the container and I reserve the right to delete any log based on integrity. I hope you enjoy this cache and learning about my grandmother's distant cousin Sidney Pierce, decended from the Watts family of Virginia.