Allen Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Out here in Van Zandt County, there's a piece of ground that's been holding memories since before most of Texas was anything but open country, and it goes by the name Allen Cemetery. But that name came later.

Everything worth knowing starts a little earlier than that. The first settlers it served were pioneers of the Turner community, and this ground was their final resting place. In the beginning, folks called it by the name of the family most present in its soil, the White family.

The earliest marked grave belongs to Hiram White, born in 1811, who died in 1867. When a man born in 1811 is your earliest marked stone, you start to feel the deep quiet of a place like that. Now, the ground kept that White family name for a good while.

But names, like deeds, can change hands. In 1909, a man named William J. Allen formally deeded the property to trustees, and from that point forward, the cemetery took on the Allen name.

William J. Allen and his wife Elizabeth Jane are both buried there, which tells you something right there about a man's commitment to a place. The two of them had migrated to this area back in 1850, putting down roots long before the paperwork caught up.

And they never really left. The years kept passing, and the cemetery kept receivin'. Veterans of military service rest there.

European immigrants who crossed an ocean and then kept on going until they found Van Zandt County rest there. Descendants of pioneer families, the children and grandchildren of people who built something out of nothing, rest there too. One piece of ground, carrying all of that.

Started with a name, changed to another, and somewhere underneath both of them, Hiram White, born 1811, has been there the longest of anyone with a marked stone to prove it. That's the kind of place Allen Cemetery is. The kind that outlasts whatever you decide to call it.

What the marker says

This burial ground first served pioneer settlers of the Turner community. The earliest marked grave is that of Hiram White (b.1811), who died in 1867. The site was originally named for the White family members interred here, but became known as Allen Cemetery after William J. Allen formally deeded the property to trustees in 1909. Allen and his wife Elizabeth Jane, both buried here, migrated to this area in 1850. Others interred here include military veterans, European Immigrants, and descendants of pioneer families. (1988)