Bridges Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker out here has to say about Bridges Cemetery. Now, if you want to talk about old Denton County, and I mean old, you start with 1843. That's when the Bridges settlement took root, and according to folks who've done the counting, that makes it reportedly the oldest settlement in all of Denton County.

It was named for the W. A. Bridges family, and it sat right in the thick of the Peters Colony, one of those great organized pushes to put people down on Texas land.

The cemetery you're looking at, or maybe just passing by, sits on land that was granted to Bridges in 1850. The stones here date to 1855. Though here's the thing that'll slow your breath just a little: some of those stones have worn so smooth, the inscriptions are flat gone.

Illegible. And those, the marker tells us, may be slightly older still. Which means there are people resting here whose names the years have simply... taken back.

What the readable stones do tell you is a particular kind of story. Children. A lot of children.

And Civil War soldiers. That combination; the very young and the men sent off to war; it says everything about what frontier life asked of the families who came here. In 1889, F.

M. and Sallie Bridges deeded the land to the county. Handed it over. Made sure it would be kept.

Today that ground holds over one hundred sandstone and granite markers standing for the Bridges family and the other early immigrant families who built this corner of Texas from nothing but nerve and 1843. Some places earn their age quietly. This is one of them.

What the marker says

Bridges settlement, named for the W. A. Bridges family and reportedly the oldest in Denton county, began in 1843 and was a center of activity of the Peters Colony. This cemetery, on land granted to Bridges in 1850, dates to 1855, although illegible stones may be slightly older. Site of the burials of the Bridges and other early immigrant families, stones here document graves of many children and Civil War soldiers. Deeded to the county by F. M. and Sallie Bridges in 1889, the cemetery contains over one hundred sandstone and granite markers. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986 Historic Texas Cemetery medallion attached to post