Property at Van Zandt County Wesley Chapel Cemetery has been damaged after an incident last week. Wesley Chapel Cemetery, located in Canton on Van Zandt County Road 2120 close to Wiley’s Gun Shop, is a Texas Historical Commission location, and the chapel on the property received significant damage.

Wesley Chapel Cemetery Association members arrived at the cemetery last week to discover the one room chapel that housed pianos, church pews, hymnal books and other items had been run through by a vehicle, from front to back. Evidence of black tire marks outside the chapel and even inside the chapel are visible, with damage to the chapel perhaps unrepairable. Broken glass, splintered wood, hymnals, flags and pews have been blasted through the back wall of the chapel, leaving two gaping holes.

Association members remarked that the chapel was used for annual meetings of the association, dinners and picnics. The chapel overlooks the cemetery.

Association members remarked that further details of the incident, along with the names of suspected person(s), will be released once the police report has been issued.

The Texas Historical Commission marker next to the chapel gives a brief description of the cemetery.

“The Watkins Community was settled in the mid-1800s. M. Crosby and his wife Isabell Crosby deeded land for a church and cemetery to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 1872. The first recorded burial in Wesley Chapel Cemetery is that of John. H. Sewell, who was buried on the site in 1870 before it was officially designated as a cemetery.

A new Wesley Chapel Methodist Church was built near the Watkins School in 1922 on land deeded by Thomas G. and Carrie Barfield. They, along with early church trustees O.M. Norman, S. A. Sewell Sr. and H. L. Paschall are buried at Wesley Chapel Cemetery. A new frame chapel was built at the cemetery in 1957 by local residents.

The five-acre cemetery contains about 400 graves. Among those interred are more than 50 young children and infants, some of whom were buried with their mothers who died in childbirth. Also buried are veterans of the Civil War, World War I and World War II.

The Wesley Chapel Cemetery Association maintains the site and hosts annual reunions with memorial services and picnics for descendants of pioneer settlers. The cemetery remains in use and continues to serve the area as it has for more than a century.”