John Echols was responsible for the early settlement of Providence Community.  Many longtime residents and settlers of this community worked for him.

To provide water for the early settlers and workers, Echols and slaves hand dug a water well near the Providence Meeting Place and the old Tunis to Caldwell Road.  That well was known to early settlers as "Echols Well," and it is still possible to locate, according to long time residents of the area.

As he farmed along the rich Brazos River "bottom," Echols looked to the hills of the Providence Community when it became necessary to move some ailing slaves and plantation settlers from the flood plain to higher ground.

Little did any of them suspect that those "ailings" were the onset of the yellow fever epidemics that raged through the area for several decades, taking victims from almost every family.  (7)

Many of the settlers and slaves who died during those epidemics were buried in the Providence Cemetery.

Echols lived in the area the rest of his life, helping establish Burleson County.  He served on the commission board that selected Caldwell as the location for Burleson County seat.

Echols died  in the mid 1870's and was buried in the Tunis Cemetery; however, the exact location of the grave has been lost. (8)

John Echols and wife donated a tract of land containing three and one fifth acres to the Providence Baptist Church (undated and unrecorded).

James H. Smith in the mid-1830's made the initial grant of two thirds acres to form the cemetery as a "free public cemetery."

The church wa organized and located next to, but separate, from the cemetery in september, 1841. (9)

The main area of the cemetery was donated by Alexander Flanagan-five acres on October 31, 1884, and Wilhelm Zalobney donated 1.1 acres on May 4, 1888.  W. E. May and wife, S. G. May donated 2 3/4 acres on May 2, 1885, and an additional 7 acres of land in 1896. (10)

Many of the older graves are simply marked with stones. Pre civil war slaves graves are marked simply with stones--or markers with initials.

Earliest fully marked graves are Elizabeth Hughes, 1806-1841; Gilbert Longstreet, 1783-1851; Sen. John Cockrell, born in South Carolina, 17951855 the latter two serving as examples of ornate state engravings.