DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll pass it right along to you. Out in Houston County, there's a patch of ground four acres wide that's been receiving the departed since the 1850s — and it hasn't stopped since. That's Augusta Cemetery, and it's got stories layered on top of stories, the way only an old pioneer burying ground can.
The earliest documented grave dates to 1854. Think about that. Before the Civil War, before the influenza, before two World Wars — somebody was already being laid to rest in that red East Texas soil.
The land itself came by way of Lucinda C. Sheridan Murchison, born in 1808, gone in 1862 — a widow by that time, her late husband John Sheridan having been an early property owner in the area. She donated those four acres, and the community has been honoring that gift ever since.
Now, among the souls interred here, some names are known and some are not. There are veterans — men who served in the Civil War, in the First World War, in the Second — all finding their final rest in the same quiet ground. There are victims of the 1918 influenza epidemic, a wave of death that didn't spare Houston County any more than it spared anywhere else.
And then there are the children. A number of children. Including one young girl — no name recorded, no family identified — who died while traveling through the area with a wagon train.
She never made it to wherever she was headed, and the people of this community took her in anyway, permanent as the pines. A cemetery association came together in 1950 to keep watch over all of them. Pioneers, soldiers, epidemic victims, and one little girl the world forgot to name.
Augusta Cemetery holds every last one.
What the marker says
The final resting place of many Houston County pioneers, this cemetery has been in continuous use since the 1850s. It is located on four acres of land donated by Lucinda C. Sheridan Murchison (1808-1862), widow of early property owner John Sheridan. The earliest documented grave dates to 1854. Among those interred here are a number of children, including one unidentified young girl who died while traveling through the area with a wagon train; victims of the 1918 influenza epidemic; and veterans of the Civil War, World War I and World War II. A cemetery association began in 1950. (1990)