Bedford Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. You're rolling through Tarrant County now, and there's a piece of ground nearby that's been holding stories longer than most folks around here have been alive. Bedford Cemetery.

And the thing about old cemeteries is, they don't just hold the dead. They hold the whole shape of a place, if you know how to read them. This one goes back, best anybody can reckon, to the 1860s.

Pioneers. The kind of people who showed up to a place before it had a name and just started the hard work of living. And dying.

The earliest marked grave belongs to a little girl: Elizabeth White Bobo, born 1866, gone 1871. Five years old. Her parents had come all the way from Bedford County, Tennessee, in 1870.

You sit with that for a moment. They traveled a long way to build something, and the ground took their daughter before it was built. Then, in 1877, a man named Milton Moore deeded a five-acre tract (cemetery included) to New Hope Church of Christ, the congregation known today as Bedford Church of Christ.

And that ground became a gathering place in the truest sense. The Bedford Church Old Settlers Reunion met here annually for over fifty years. Fifty years of coming back.

Of remembering who came first and what it cost. Now, there's one name here you might recognize; or at least, you know the place named for him. W.

L. Hurst, born 1833, died 1922. The nearby city of Hurst carries his name, and Hurst himself is interred right here.

Buried in the same ground where pioneers have been laid to rest since the 1860s. In 1975, the Bedford Cemetery Association acquired the site, making sure this story doesn't get lost. Though, if we're being honest, some of it already has been.

Many of Bedford's earliest pioneers are buried here in unmarked graves. No names. No dates.

Just the earth, keeping its own counsel. That's the thing about a place like this: what's marked is only part of what's here.

What the marker says

Pioneers probably began using this graveyard during the 1860s. Earliest marked grave is that of Elizabeth White Bobo (1866-1871), whose parents came here in 1870 from Bedford County, Tenn. In 1877 Milton Moore deeded a five-acre tract, including this cemetery, to New Hope Church of Christ, now Bedford Church of Christ. The Bedford Church Old Settlers Reunion met here annually for over 50 years. W. L. Hurst (1833-1922), for whom nearby Hurst is named, is interred here. In 1975 the Bedford Cemetery Association acquired the site. Many Bedford pioneers are buried here in unmarked graves. (1979)