DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Board Branch Cemetery, out in Llano County. Now, every graveyard has got a story, but some of them have got layers — and Board Branch Cemetery, well, it's been collectin' layers since before most of Texas could spell its own name. The land belonged to W.
A. and Sallie Templeton, and on their property grew what became a public burial ground for the Lone Grove community and the folks scattered all around it. That's how these places start — not with a plan, exactly, but with a need. And once the need takes root in a piece of ground, it tends to stay.
According to oral history — and oral history out here is not something you dismiss lightly — the earliest grave on this site may be that of a man named William Kinderly, reportedly killed by Indians in 1864. May be. That word 'may' carries a lot of weight when you're standing in a quiet field in Llano County.
The earliest grave with documentation belongs to Susan Reed, wife of John S. Reed, who passed in 1886. And from there the ground kept accepting its neighbors.
More than eighty graves on this site date from 1900 or before. Eighty souls before the century even turned. The cemetery takes its name from Board Branch Creek, which runs nearby — a creek that once hosted a mill operation, and whose name got carried forward into this place of rest long after the mill fell quiet.
Among the graves worth pausing at are those of Confederate veterans. Dr. Cyrus Reeves, an Army surgeon who came up from Alabama, is one of them.
He rests here alongside eight others who wore that same gray history. And then the later wars come in — World War I, World War II, other wars and conflicts — each generation adding its own to the count. Board Branch Cemetery doesn't just mark one moment in Texas.
It marks nearly every hard moment Texas has seen. That's a lot of weight for one piece of the Templeton land to carry — and from the look of things, it's been carrying it just fine.
What the marker says
This graveyard developed as a public burial ground for the Lone Grove community and surrounding area on the property of W. A. and Sallie Templeton. According to oral history, the earliest grave on this site may be that of William Kinderly, reportedly killed by Indians in 1864. The earliest documented grave is that of Susan Reed (d. 1886), the wife of John S. Reed. There are more than eighty graves dating from 1900 or before. The cemetery is called Board Branch for a mill operation once located on nearby Board Branch Creek. Among the graves of interest on this site are those of Confederate veterans such as Dr. Cyrus Reeves, an Army surgeon from Alabama, and eight others. Veterans of World War I, World War II, and other wars and conflicts are interred here, as well. (2000)