Bear Creek Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Bear Creek Cemetery, up in Collin County. Now, out here on the Texas backroads, you'll pass a whole lot of ground that used to be something: a whole town, a whole world, and all that's left is a patch of quiet earth and maybe a few stones standing at attention. Bear Creek Cemetery is exactly that kind of place, and the story it holds is worth slowing down for.

Back in the middle to late 19th century, settlers in this part of Collin County planted roots deep enough to call it a community. They gave it a name with some ambition behind it: Empire. And empire-minded folks don't just build for the living.

They build for the long haul. Residents organized the Bear Creek Methodist Episcopal Church north of this very site, and before long, the land around it became the community's burial ground. Two men, H.C.

Harless and M.C. Robinson, donated the first few acres to get it started. Now, the first marked graves here belong to a family named Harris.

In 1873, W.P. Harris buried his wife, Margaret J. (she was a Harless by birth) and their infant daughter, Mary Lou. Two lives, one year, side by side in the ground of a young community.

That's a weight that doesn't lift. The cemetery filled in over time with people who had shaped Empire in their own ways. Uriah C.

Harless, a Confederate veteran and son of H.C. Harless himself, rests here. So does J.L.

Brockman, who carried the dual callings of physician and minister; a man who tended to both the body and the soul, which in a frontier community wasn't a bad combination to have. Several other community leaders found their final place here as well. And if you walk among the headstones, you'll notice something: fraternal symbols carved into the stone marking the graves of Masons and Woodmen of the World.

These men belonged to brotherhoods in life, and their markers make sure you know it in death. Over the years, the cemetery has had its caretakers. The Empire Masonic Lodge (now located in Nevada) tended to the site, along with an area Boy Scout troop and various other groups across the history of the burial ground.

Empire itself once had more going for it: a boarding school, the Bear Creek Church. Signs of a community that believed it was going somewhere. But by the turn of the 21st century, the town had faded back into the land; all except for two things.

The cemetery. And the Masonic Lodge. Two remnants holding the line, keeping the name Empire from disappearing entirely.

Sometimes that's how a town survives: not in bricks and bustle, but in carved stone and the quiet loyalty of people who refuse to let the grass grow too tall over what came before.

What the marker says

In the middle to late 19th century, settlers in this area established the community of Empire. Residents organized the Bear Creek Methodist Episcopal Church north of this site, which became the community's burial ground. H.C. Harless and M.C. Robinson donated the first few acres for creation of the cemetery. Here, W.P. Harris buried his wife, Margaret J. (Harless), and their infant daughter, Mary Lou, in 1873. Their graves are the first marked. Others buried in the cemetery include Uriah C. Harless, Confederate veteran and son of H.C. Harless; physician and minister J.L. Brockman; and several other community leaders. The graves of numerous Masons and Woodmen of the World are indicated by fraternal symbols on headstones. During the history of the burial ground, various groups, including the Empire Masonic Lodge, now located in Nevada, as well as an area Boy Scout troop, have cared for the site. Although Empire once boasted a boarding school and the Bear Creek Church, by the turn of the 21st century only the cemetery and the Masonic Lodge served as reminders of the early community. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2005