DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Two families made their way into Texas from Louisiana in 1843 — the Benjamin and Hannah Abshier family, Hannah being born a Weed, and the Benjamin and Sarah Weed family, Sarah born a Hanks. Extended kin, both clans, and when they arrived in this corner of Liberty County, they got to work the way frontier families did: purchased land, put down roots, and started farming.
Nobody was thinking about cemeteries yet. They were thinking about crops and children and the long work of making a place their own. But the land has a way of claiming people before they're ready to go.
In June of 1852, a twenty-seven-year-old woman named Lucinda Abshier Higginbotham died. She was the Abshiers' daughter — grown, married, a mother herself, leaving behind a husband and six children. They laid her to rest right there on the Abshier family farm, in a quiet plot of ground.
And that plot of ground became something more than a farm field from that day forward. It became a family graveyard. Generations followed.
Abshiers, Weeds, and families connected to them by blood and marriage found their final rest in this same soil. And here's where the story gets wide and deep, because among the people buried here are veterans — veterans of the War of 1812, the Texas Revolution, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, and Korea. Nearly every conflict that shaped this nation from its rough early years into the modern age has a voice in this cemetery.
Walk through and you'll also notice something a little unusual — monuments carved to look like tree trunks. Those belong to members of the Woodmen of the World Lodge, a fraternal organization from the nineteenth century, and they made sure their markers stood out. Not every grave has a marker, though.
There are unmarked burials here too, people whose names the ground keeps to itself. In 1896, a cemetery association was established to maintain the place, and they've been at it ever since. The original two-acre plot grew to three acres in 1938.
What started as one young woman's resting place on a family farm became a keeper of generations — and a reminder of the people who first made Liberty County home.
What the marker says
The families of Benjamin and Hannah (Weed) Abshier and Benjamin and Sarah (Hanks) Weed came to this area of Texas from Louisiana in 1843. The extended families purchased land and established farms in this vicinity. In June 1852 the Abshiers' 27-year-old daughter, Lucinda Abshier Higginbotham, died, leaving a husband and six children. She was laid to rest on the Abshier family farm, in a plot of land which would become a family graveyard. Since that time, members of many generations of Abshier, Weed, and related families have been interred in the cemetery. Among those buried here are veterans of the War of 1812, the Texas Revolution, the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, and Korea. A number of unusual and elaborate grave markers can be seen, including tree-trunk-shaped monuments of the Woodmen of the World Lodge, a 19th-century fraternal organization. There are also a number of unmarked burials. Established in 1896, a cemetery association maintains the historic graveyard. The original two-acre plot was enlarged to three acres in 1938. The cemetery continues to serve as a reminder of early Liberty County pioneers. (1990) Historic Texas Cemetery