Bethel Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out in Burnet County, there's a piece of ground that holds a whole community's memory. Two acres.

That's all it took. But let me back up and tell you how it came to be. The Reverend Richard Howard was born in 1817, and by 1855 he had made his way to this stretch of Burnet County, settling into what was then a frontier community.

A rough and growing place, the kind that didn't yet have a proper name. In time, folks would come to call it the Bethel community. Now Reverend Howard, born in 1817 and gone by 1882, was the kind of man who thought about more than just the living.

In 1874, he deeded two acres right here, set aside for community use. He couldn't have known exactly what those two acres would carry. Or maybe he could.

Because just one year later, in 1875, the first recorded burial took place on that ground. It was Harriet Ruthie Howard. His own granddaughter.

You sit with that a moment. The man who gave the land was the first to give someone he loved to it. From that point forward, the Bethel community used this site as their cemetery, and the names kept coming.

Veterans of the Civil War. Veterans of World War II. Early settlers of this hard country and their descendants, generation after generation, returned to the same two acres.

By 1930, the community had organized formally, establishing the Bethel Cemetery Association to tend what had been growing here for more than half a century. Two acres. One reverend.

One granddaughter. And a community that never forgot where it came from.

What the marker says

The Rev. Richard Howard (1817-1882) moved to this area of Burnet County in 1855. The frontier settlement he joined would later be known as the Bethel community. In 1874 he deeded two acres at this site for community use. The first recorded burial was that of Howard's granddaughter, Harriet Ruthie Howard, in 1875. Since then this site has been used as the Bethel community cemetery. Buried here are veterans of the Civil War to World War II and many of this area's early settlers and their descendants. The Bethel Cemetery Association was established in 1930. (1993)