DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna do my best to do it justice. Somewhere in Titus County, there's a piece of ground that has been holding onto stories since before the Civil War was even cold. This is the story of Bridges Chapel Cemetery, and friend, it earns every inch of that name.
Relious and Candice Grissom Bridges settled in this area somewhere between 1857 and 1860, and they didn't come alone. Candice's brother Thomas Grissom came with them, the kind of family arrangement that was just how you did things out on the Texas frontier — you brought your people. They put down roots, worked the land, and by 1867 the Bridges family gave land right here for a Methodist church and a cemetery.
That's the kind of gesture that says we're not leaving. We intend to stay, and we intend to matter. The first burial is believed to have been a laborer who worked for Thomas Grissom.
We don't even have his name — just that he was first, and that the ground received him. The earliest marked grave, though, belongs to Mary Bridges Williams, who died in 1868 giving birth to her third child, a son who died with her. One stone, two souls.
You take a breath at that one. Now here's where this story gets heavy in a way that makes you go quiet. Both Relious and Candice Bridges — the very couple who gave this land, who built this place into something — they died on October 11 of that same year, 1868.
The same year. Six more of their children are interred here in this cemetery they helped bring into being. And then, as if the land itself wanted to test what had been built, a tornado came through in 1904 and scattered the fragile wooden markers across the Bridges Cemetery.
But order was restored. Someone cared enough to put it right. In the 1960s, perpetual care was established here, which is about as firm a promise as you can make to the dead — we will not forget you.
Bridges Chapel Cemetery is still out there in Titus County, still receiving, still remembering, a chronicle, the marker calls it, of the early pioneers of Titus County and the surrounding areas. And a chronicle it is. Some places just hold history.
This one earned it.
What the marker says
Relious and Candice Grissom Bridges settled in this area between 1857 and 1860 along with Candice's brother Thomas Grissom. In 1867 the family gave land for a Methodist church and cemetery at this site. The first burial is believed to have been that of a laborer for Thomas Grissom. The earliest marked grave is that of Mary Bridges Williams, who died giving birth to her third child, a son who died with her in 1868. Both Relious and Candice Bridges died on October 11 of that year. Six more of their children are interred here. A 1904 tornado scattered the fragile wooden markers in the Bridges Cemetery, but order was restored. Perpetual care was established here in the 1960s, and the Bridges Chapel Cemetery continues as a chronicle of the early pioneers of Titus County and the surrounding areas. (2000)