Barton Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna pass it along to you. Way back in 1826, this piece of Texas earth was part of a Mexican land grant, awarded to a man named Ben Milam. Whatever that land was destined to become, it started there, with that grant.

Then the decades rolled by, and in the 1850s, a man named James U. Barton loaded up his family and made the journey from Alabama to Texas, settling right here and putting down roots in the form of a working farm. James U.

Barton, born in 1814. A man who planted himself in this soil and intended to stay. Now, cemeteries don't announce themselves.

They begin quietly, with loss. And the first burial believed to have taken place in this ground was not some elder statesman or weathered pioneer. It was a child.

An infant girl named Ella May Ligon, James Barton's granddaughter, who died in 1873. That's how this place became sacred ground. Gently, and with grief.

After that, other relatives came to rest here, and neighbors from the Mountain City community as well, the way these old country graveyards grow, one sorrow at a time. And James Barton, he made it official. In 1881, he deeded three and a quarter acres of land specifically for that graveyard.

Put it in writing. Made sure the ground meant what everyone already knew it meant. Born in 1814, and still looking after his community come 1881.

That's a particular kind of man. The Barton Cemetery, all these years on, continues to serve the people of this area. Some places earn their permanence.

This one did it the hard way.

What the marker says

This property was part of a Mexican land grant awarded to Ben Milam in 1826. James U. Barton (1814-1893) brought his family to Texas from alabama in the 1850s and established a farm at this site. The first burial in this cemetery is believed to be that of Barton's infant granddaughter, ella May Ligon, who died in 1873. Other relatives and neighbors in the Mountain City community also were buried here, and James barton officially deeded 3.25 acres of land for the graveyard in 1881. The Barton Cemetery continues to serve residents of this area.