Abraham Carver Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight. Out in Dallas County, there's a half-acre of ground that holds more Texas history than most folks would ever expect to find in a space that small. They call it the Abraham Carver Cemetery, and once you hear what's buried there (and I mean that in every sense of the word), you won't forget it easy.

Twenty-one graves have been located on that half-acre. Twenty-one. And among them, six generations of one family, the Carvers, all gathered together in the earth of a place their patriarch chose long before most of the surrounding country had a name anyone would recognize.

That patriarch was Abraham Carver himself, born in 1806, died in 1883, and the earliest marked grave in the cemetery is his. He didn't come to Texas alone, either. He rode in in 1844 alongside his brothers Solomon and Daniel (now there's a trio of names that sound like they belong in scripture and on a frontier deed at the same time), and Abraham eventually secured a 320-acre land grant.

That's the land this cemetery sits on. Just a small portion of it, but his portion, his family's portion, for keeps. His second wife, Elizabeth, who passed in 1885, rests there too.

Two of their children beside her. And then the cemetery kept its quiet vigil across the decades, marking time the way only a family burial ground can, until 1946, when the last burial took place. That was Chris Carver, born in 1866, laid to rest there at the end.

Six generations, one half-acre, one family that came to Texas with two brothers and put down roots deep enough to outlast just about everything. That's the Abraham Carver Cemetery, and that ground has been earning its story for a long, long time.

What the marker says

Twenty-one graves have been located in the Abraham Carver Cemetery which covers one-half acre of land and contains six generations of Carver family members. The earliest marked grave is that of Abraham Carver (1806-1883), who came to Texas in 1844 with his brothers Solomon and Daniel. This family cemetery is located on a small portion of his original 320-acre land grant. Carver's second wife, Elizabeth (d. 1885), and two of their children are also interred here. The last burial, that of Chris Carver (b. 1866), took place in 1946.