Baker-Lain Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Baker-Lain Cemetery, out here in Johnson County. Now, every graveyard has a first soul, and this one's story starts the way so many Texas stories do, on the road, in a wagon, under an open sky. Sometime in the 1850s, a little girl was traveling through this very area with her family, part of a wagon train pushing through whatever came next.

But she fell ill. And she didn't make it. She is said to be the first person buried here, on ground that hadn't yet been given a name, in a place that didn't yet know what it would become.

It would become something, though. By 1860, the New Hope Baptist Church had been founded nearby, and records from that congregation suggest a man named J. L.

Baker originally deeded land for this cemetery. That's how a place starts to take shape, someone puts down roots, then someone puts down a name. And then the Lain family came along and donated additional land, according to deed records.

Two families, two gifts of ground, and a name that carries them both forward. The earliest dated gravestone belongs to Hixy Moore, who lived from 1815 to 1870. Stand at that stone and you're standing at the oldest marked beginning of what this place became, a chronicle, really.

Because that's the word for it. Pioneers are buried here. Veterans are buried here.

Generations of families from in and around Johnson County, their whole lives distilled down to names and dates and the grass growing quiet over them. But here's the thing that sets this cemetery apart from a lot of forgotten plots out on the Texas landscape, it hasn't been forgotten. The descendants of those families remain committed to their legacy.

They're out here caring for it. Which means that little girl, the one who fell ill on a wagon trail before any of this had a name, is still being looked after. She started something.

And it's still going.

What the marker says

In the 1850s a little girl, traveling through this area with her family by wagon train, fell ill and died. She is said to be the first person buried here. Records of the New Hope Baptist Church, founded nearby in 1860, suggest that J. L. Baker originally deeded land for this cemetery. Deed records indicate the Lain family later donated additional land. The earliest dated gravestone is that of Hixy Moore (1815-1870). The lives of pioneers, veterans and generations of families from in and around Johnson County are chronicled here; their descendants remain committed to their legacy by caring for the cemetery. Historic Texas Cemetery – 2001