DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Archie Adams came a long way to get to Houston County, Texas — all the way from South Carolina, and he didn't arrive until 1873. Now, he'd already lived enough life by then to call himself a Confederate veteran, so he wasn't a young man starting from scratch so much as a seasoned one starting over.
And whatever he was looking for out here in East Texas, it seems like he found it. He became a farmer. He ran a general store.
He served as an election judge and as a county commissioner. The man was woven into the fabric of that county in just about every way a person can be. But here's the thing that'll stay with you — through all of it, Archie Adams was writing it down.
From 1873 all the way to 1897, he kept a journal. Every year, every season, the quiet observations and the hard days and the ordinary Tuesdays that history usually forgets — he captured them. Scholars and historians have called that journal an invaluable commentary on 19th-century life in Houston County, and I don't think that's an overstatement.
Now, 1884 brought the kind of grief that stops a man cold. Archie and his wife, Selia Anna, lost an infant son. And in that loss, Archie did what a lot of men of his time and place did — he set aside ground.
He began a family cemetery, right there, marked by that first, smallest grave. He and Selia Anna would eventually rest there too, in the cemetery he started on the saddest day. A man who recorded everything, laid to rest in a place that records him still.
What the marker says
A native of South Carolina and a Confederate Veteran, Archie Adams came to Houston County in 1873. Adams was a farmer and general store owner and also served as an election judge and county commissioner. He and his wife, Selia Anna, are buried in the family cemetery he began in 1884 with the burial of an infant son. The journal he kept form 1873 until 1897 serves as an invaluable commentary on 19th-century life in Houston County.