Bowman Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll pass it along just as it stands. Out here in Archer County, there's a piece of ground with a story older than most folks remember. The land for Bowman Cemetery was donated in 1885, given over by a man named W.

A. Bacon to the Evangelical Missionary Society of North America. Now that's not a small thing, donating land.

That's saying: this place matters. This place is for keeping. And the very same year the deed changed hands, the ground received its first burial.

Her name was Christina Schmith, born in 1857, and she was laid to rest in that same year of 1885. The cemetery had barely begun, and already it was doing what cemeteries do. Walk the grounds today and you'll notice something that stops most visitors cold.

On the south side of the cemetery stands a sandstone mausoleum, and it is not like anything else out here on the Texas plain. Built about the turn of the century by a man named A. F.

Decker, who himself would pass in 1927, it was built not for himself but for his parents. There's something in that worth sitting with. A son, planning ahead, cutting stone, raising walls, so his people would have a place that held.

The mausoleum is unique, the marker says, and looking at it, you believe it. Many of the souls buried across these grounds were German immigrants, and their presence shaped this corner of Archer County in ways that linger in the names on the stones and in the culture woven into the land itself. For decades the cemetery kept on, as cemeteries will, quiet and patient.

Then in 1940, a cemetery association was organized to care for the graveyard. Someone looked around and decided this place deserved tending, not just remembering. The marker itself was placed in 1986, part of the Texas Sesquicentennial, that long celebration stretching from 1836 to 1986.

So here it stands: a sandstone mausoleum built by a son for his parents, a plot of donated ground, a German immigrant community, and a first burial in 1885. Some places earn their markers. This one did.

What the marker says

Land for this cemetery was donated in 1885 by W. A. Bacon to the Evangelical Missionary Society of North America. The first burial, that of Christina Schmith (b. 1857), took place the same year. The unique sandstone mausoleum on the south side of the cemetery was built about the turn of the century by A. F. Decker (d. 1927) for his parents. Many of the burials are those of German immigrants, reflecting the influence of the German culture in this area. A cemetery association was organized in 1940 to care for the graveyard. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986.