Molsbee Chapel Cemetery began as a family burial ground in 1888. According to the Texas Historical Commission marker erected in 2000 (THC Atlas #5337012232; site id nocona-06 in this inventory), the Rev. Abraham Molsbee and his wife Susan Looney Molsbee brought their eight children from Tennessee to Texas in 1888 and purchased 965 acres of land for farming and stock raising. That same year, their 20-year-old son Orville died. The cemetery began as the place they buried him, adjacent to the Molsbee Chapel Church.
The marker inscription records that two acres were formally deeded as a community burial ground in 1942, more than fifty years after the first burial. That gap — from family graveyard in 1888 to community deed in 1942 — is a common trajectory for 19th-century Montague County cemeteries that began as private grounds and were eventually formalized for community use.
The Molsbee Family and the Tennessee Migration
The Molsbee origin story is a documented example of the Tennessee-to-Texas migration that populated Montague County’s rural townships in the late 19th century. The county’s earliest Anglo settlers had arrived in the 1849–1860 period; the Molsbees arrived in 1888, representing a second wave of agricultural migration that continued well after the county’s initial organization.
The Rev. Abraham Molsbee’s acquisition of 965 acres for farming and stock raising places him among the larger-scale agricultural settlers of the Nocona area — a significant land purchase in a county where many homesteaders claimed the 160-acre federal homestead allotment. The establishment of a church — Molsbee Chapel — and an adjacent cemetery on this land followed a pattern common to rural Texas settlement: the farm, the church, and the burial ground were established together as a self-sufficient community infrastructure.
The THC marker does not specify Abraham Molsbee’s denomination, but the chapel-and-cemetery pattern is consistent with Methodist and Baptist church-planting traditions common among Tennessee-origin settlers in North Texas. The cemetery is conservatively designated here as “chapel-affiliated community” rather than a specific denomination, pending field confirmation of the Molsbee Chapel Church’s affiliation.
Notable Burials
The THC marker inscription identifies several notable interments by name:
Orville Molsbee (d. 1888, age 20) — first burial in the cemetery; death of the Molsbees’ son initiated the establishment of the burial ground. His death at age 20, the year the family arrived from Tennessee, is documented as the cemetery’s founding event.
John P. Watson — Confederate soldier, 43rd Georgia Regiment. His burial at Molsbee Chapel Cemetery connects this Nocona-area ground to the broader pattern of Confederate veterans settling across North Texas in the decades after the Civil War. The 43rd Georgia Regiment served in the Eastern and Western theaters of the Civil War; Watson’s presence in Montague County implies a post-war migration from Georgia to Texas, a documented pattern among Confederate veterans seeking land in the post-Reconstruction South.
Fulton B. Loe, Jr. — Confederate soldier, Company A28, Louisiana Infantry. A second Confederate veteran from a different state unit, suggesting that the Molsbee Chapel community included veterans from multiple Confederate states who had migrated to North Texas after the war.
The marker also states: “Many veterans of the Armed Forces are interred here” — encompassing veterans of wars beyond the Civil War, consistent with a cemetery that was active from 1888 through at least the 2000 marker erection date and likely continues to receive burials.
The 2000 THC Marker
Molsbee Chapel Cemetery received a Texas Historical Commission historical marker in 2000 (THC Atlas #5337012232). The marker is the primary documented source for the cemetery’s history. The inscription is condensed in this record; the full verbatim text is available at THC Atlas #5337012232. The MCCPC inventory records this as a confirmed cemetery with a THC marker and identifies it as a “church” denomination type (chapel-affiliated).
Research Gaps
The following are not confirmed in available sources beyond the THC marker:
- Current maintenance status and governance (whether the Molsbee family or a successor organization maintains the cemetery)
- Total interment count
- GPS coordinates
- Find A Grave cemetery page ID
- Complete burial list beyond the named individuals in the marker text
- Current status of Molsbee Chapel Church (whether the church structure survives)
- Denomination of Molsbee Chapel Church
The MCCPC and the THC Atlas file for #5337012232 are the best available sources for additional detail. A field visit to the Nocona area to photograph the marker and assess the cemetery’s current condition is recommended.