DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out in Burleson County, down where the Brazos valley spreads itself wide and rich and green, there's a piece of ground that's been holding memory since before most of Texas was even a notion on a map. Folks know it by two names — Brazos Bottom Baptist Church Cemetery, and the Old Tunis Cemetery — and either way you say it, you're talking about one of the more quietly powerful spots in this part of the state.
The graves go back to the eighteen forties. Let that settle in. The eighteen forties.
When pioneers were still figuring out what it meant to put roots in this fertile Brazos valley soil, some of them were already being laid into it. Now, for a good while that ground served the community in an informal way, the way pioneer places tend to. But then came eighteen sixty-seven, and John and Sarah Wright Echols did something that mattered.
They formally set aside land — made it official — for both a graveyard and a Baptist Church. Gave the place a proper home, a proper purpose. That church, though.
It gathered its congregation, it served its people, and then in eighteen eighty-three, it disbanded. The church is gone. But the cemetery?
The cemetery held on. And what it holds is something worth stopping for. The headstones preserve the names of farmers and veterans, families and pioneers — the whole working, striving, living fabric of that valley.
Among them stands the marker for Judge John Gregg, born seventeen ninety-eight, died eighteen forty-eight — a veteran of the Texas War for Independence, a planter, and a justice of Milam County. A man who helped fight for this place and then helped govern it, and who now rests in the very ground he called home. These days, a cemetery association tends to the site, keeping the grass back and the memory alive.
Because that's the thing about a place like this — the Brazos valley gave these people everything, and they gave the valley their names, their stories, their bones. And the ground, to its credit, hasn't let go of a single one.
What the marker says
Also known as the Old Tunis Cemetery, this burial ground originally served a pioneer area of the fertile Brazos valley. Graves date from the 1840s, and John and Sarah Wright Echols formally set aside land in 1867 for this graveyard and a Baptist Church, which disbanded in 1883. The headstones preserve the names of farmers, veterans, families and pioneers, including Judge John Gregg (1798-1848), a Texas War for Independence veteran, planter and Milam County justice. A cemetery association maintains the site, preserving the rich history of the valley. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2000