Black Jack Springs Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it my best telling too. This is the story of Black Jack Springs Cemetery, out in Fayette County. Now, by 1840, a group of Anglo and German families had already found their way to a particular spot in Texas.

They settled near the headwaters of the Black Jack Branch of Buckner's Creek, and the community they built there came to be known as Black Jack Springs. These days, folks call that place O'Quinn. Every community, sooner or later, needs a place to put its dead.

And the man who stepped up first was a pioneer by the name of Charles Luck. He provided the land, and the first marked grave in the cemetery belongs to his brother-in-law, Thomas H. Oeding, who died in 1867.

Simple as that. A man dies, a brother-in-law gives the ground, and a cemetery begins. The second known burial, though, carries a story that travels a good deal farther before it finds its end.

His name was Johann Wilhelm Loessin, and most folks called him Wil. When the Civil War came calling, Wil didn't go alone. He volunteered alongside his three brothers as U.S. cavalrymen.

Four brothers riding off together. That's the kind of thing a family never forgets, one way or another. Wil Loessin died in 1869, but the wound that killed him wasn't delivered on any battlefield.

He contracted an illness while held as a prisoner of war, at Camp Groce, on the Liendo Plantation, near Hempstead. He came home, eventually, but not the way anyone hoped. He came home to that cemetery on the Black Jack Branch of Buckner's Creek, and he became the second name written into this ground.

The community kept growing around that cemetery. In 1871, residents built Trinitatis Lutheran Church right next to it, on land formally deeded by N.W. Faison.

Charles Luck, that same generous pioneer who started the whole thing, donated more tracts of land, including the original graveyard itself. And the heirs of Johanetta Luck Froelich Schwartz gave additional land to what grew into the full Black Jack Springs Cemetery. Over the years, the stones multiplied.

Soldiers. Homesteaders. Carpenter craftsmen.

And buried among them, the renowned German-Texas poet Johannes C.N. Romberg. The names carved into those stones, taken together, chronicle the lives of early Fayette County settlers and the generations that followed them.

There's something quietly powerful about a cemetery that begins with one pioneer giving land for his brother-in-law, and ends up holding a community's entire story. Every name out there in that ground was somebody's first reason to stay.

What the marker says

The Black Jack Springs Community, now called O'Quinn, was established by a group of Anglo and German families who settled near the headwaters of the Black Jack Branch of Buckner's Creek by 1840. Pioneer Charles Luck provided land for the burial of his brother-in-law, Thomas H. Oeding (d. 1867). Oeding's is the first marked grave in this cemetery, which probably first served the Luck-Oeding family. The second known burial is that of Johann Wilhelm (Wil) Loessin (d. 1869), who volunteered with his three brothers as U.S. cavalrymen in the Civil War. Wil died from an illness contracted while held as a prisoner of war at Camp Groce, Liendo Plantation, near Hempstead. Adjoining the cemetery, residents built Trinitatis Lutheran Church in 1871 on land formally deeded by N.W. Faison. Charles Luck donated tracts of land, including the original graveyard, and heirs of Johanetta Luck Froelich Schwartz gave additional land to what became the Black Jack Springs Cemetery. Buried here are soldiers, homesteaders, carpenter craftsmen, and the renown German-Texas poet Johannes C.N. Romberg. The many names found among the stones in the cemetery chronicle the lives of early county settlers and their descendants. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2002