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The Mahomet community is located on Ranch Road 243 about 11 miles North East of Bertram and South of Briggs in far eastern Burnet County near the Williamson County line. It was at one time a thriving agricultural community. Mahomet and neighboring Sycamore Springs once had 3 gins, a general store, a school and 2 churches. Latitude: 30°48'56"N, Longitude: 97°56'00"W
The annual homecoming event is held at the cemetery each spring on the Saturday morning before Memorial Day. Veterans who served our country in the Mexican American War through the present are honored with a flag ceremony followed by a barbecue lunch and business meeting. All family and friends are welcome to "come home" and visit.
The Smart, Stewart and Williams families settled in Sycamore Springs in the early 1850s. Some of the other early families who came later included the Bakers, Berrys, Clarks, Coxes, Greers, McAndrews, McCormicks and Russells.1 The community adopted the Mahomet name after the Mahomet Post Office was relocated to Alex M. Ramsey's home near Sycamore Springs in January of 1883.
The Mahomet Christian Church was established in about 1851 at nearby Sycamore Springs and continues to worship each Sunday morning at 9AM.
The Mount Horeb Masonic Lodge was chartered 21 January 1854 and is the oldest lodge in Burnet County. The first meeting place was a log schoolhouse. In 1856 a lodge hall was built at Gabriel Mills and later razed by fire on December 19th, 1915. The lodge was rebuilt on the current site in 1916 on land given by G. T. and W.J. Williams. Beginning in 1873 the lodge met on the first Saturday evening on or before the full moon. This meeting day was selected to allow the participants to have the safety of moonlight as they traveled to and from the meeting on horseback. The lodge recently changed their meeting day.
The Mahomet post office along with the Austin-Lampasas Stage Coach stop was initially located in the home of George Ater. The post office remained there for twenty-five years beginning 14 December 1857. George Ater settled on Bear Creek in 1853 and most likely named the post office after the city he came from, Mahomet, Illinois. In 1882 the Austin and Northwestern Railroad bypassed Mahomet in favor of Bertram a few miles away. The Mahomet post office and Mahomet name then moved to the home of Alex M. Ramsey in the Sycamore Springs community about six miles east. The family names of the postmasters included Ater, Durr, Ramsey, Stuart, Harrison, Hamilton, and Williams. The post office was closed 31 July 1916.
The Texas Historical Commission plaque at the cemetery that was installed on the Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995 reads: "This cemetery with interments dating back to the 1850s, became a community graveyard for the Sycamore Springs and Mahomet rural communities. In 1909 J.W. Williams and J.W. & Nellie Greer deeded the cemetery property to the community of Mahomet. Among the hundreds of people buried here are many of the area's pioneer settlers and their descendants and veterans of wars ranging from the Mexican War (1846-48) to the Vietnam War. Mahomet Cemetery remains active and is maintained by an association of descendents of people buried here."
Quick Pointers to those we love that are buried in the Mahomet Cemetery:
Family names that appear often include:
The earliest recorded burial is John White Smart. Family records indicate John died about 1855.
Donations for the maintenance and preservation of the cemetery along with comments and affirmation may be sent to: Mahomet Cemetery Association
Mahomet Cemetery Association board:
1Our thanks to Darrell Debo for his work on the Burnet County History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979) See: Volume 1, Page 124.
Burnet County Genealogy Page: http://www.rootsweb.com/~txburnet/index.htm
Postmasters and Post Offices:
Williamson County History and Genealogy: http://three-legged-willie.org/
History is the unsatisfied search for the truth - Bill
Moyers 4th of January 2002
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societies, and for personal use; however, commercial use of this information
is strictly prohibited without prior permission of the Mahomet Cemetery
Association. Stories, photos and records cannot be copied and reposted on
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Plans for next year
Last updated by Robert Noland
on the 18th of May 2013.
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