Brookland Cemetery

Duane's take

The official marker for Brookland Cemetery in Shelby County is what I'm bringing you now, in my own telling. Now, some stories start with a single man and a single piece of ground. This one starts with two brothers, and two sisters, and a long road west.

Henry L. and William Rubin Brook were Georgia natives, both of them. And here's a detail that'll make you smile. Henry married Mary Jane Henry, and William married Caroline E.

Henry. Brothers who married sisters. The Henry family and the Brook family were tangled together before they ever crossed into Texas.

The two families migrated out of Alabama and had settled in Shelby County by 1850. Now Henry Brook wasn't a man who showed up empty-handed. He'd secured 320 acres through an 1845 Republic of Texas act granting land on unassigned public domain.

That is a phrase worth sitting with. Unassigned public domain. Land waiting for someone to come claim it, and Henry Brook came to claim it.

But land claims in frontier Texas were not always settled quietly. Henry had to take his homestead and property boundaries all the way into district court to defend them. And when that wasn't enough, the case went higher still, affirmed by the Texas Supreme Court itself, resulting in an 1859 letter patent from Governor H.

R. Runnels. Henry Brook fought for that ground through the courts, and he won it clean.

He was a merchant and a farmer, Henry was, and the community that grew up around him took his name. Brookland. The homes of Brook and Henry family members spread out across the area, and a little world began to form around them.

Henry died in October of 1871. And his burial is the first recorded in Brookland Cemetery. The man who fought for the land in court, who settled it and farmed it and built a community on it, became the first to be laid into it permanently.

But the story doesn't stop there, because Mary Jane Brook was not a woman who stopped. After Henry's death, Mary Jane continued to farm with the help of her sons. And she didn't just hold on.

She became, as the marker puts it, an astute businesswoman, operating the Brookland-Logansport ferry. She also donated land and lumber to build the Brookland Methodist Church, which became the forerunner of the first Methodist church in Joaquin. That church stands in the northeast corner of the cemetery, where her husband was the first to be buried.

That is a woman who understood where things belong. What started as a family graveyard grew into something larger. Brookland Cemetery became a community burial ground serving not just Shelby County but reaching across the state line into DeSoto Parish, Louisiana.

Pioneer settlers and their descendants are buried here, alongside military veterans from conflicts dating all the way back to the Civil War. Walk through it and you'll find concrete and brick curbing, grave markers of granite, limestone, and marble, and fraternal tombstones marking members of the Woodmen of the World, the Masons, and the Order of the Eastern Star. A whole society, rendered in stone.

The Brookland Cemetery Association organized in 1912 and still maintains the site to this day, holding an annual work day every May. People still show up. Still tend the ground.

Still keep faith with everyone resting beneath it. Two brothers, two sisters, 320 acres of unassigned public domain, and a court fight that ended with a governor's letter patent. That's how Brookland began.

And it's still going. Still serving the living, still chronicling the dead, and still carrying the name of the man who had to prove in court that the land was his.

What the marker says

Georgia natives Henry l. And William Rubin Brook, brothers who married sisters Mary Jane and Caroline E. Henry, respectively, migrated from Alabama to Shelby County by 1850. Henry Brook settled 320 acres through an 1845 Republic of Texas act granting land on unassigned public domain. Brook later had to defend his homestead and property boundaries in district court, in a case later affirmed by the Texas Supreme Court, resulting in an 1859 letter patent from governor H. R. Runnels. Henry Brook was a merchant and farmer, and the Brookland community developed around the homes of Brook and Henry family members who settled here. Henry died in October 1871, and his burial is the first recorded in Brookland Cemetery. After his death, Mary Jane continued to farm with the help of her sons and became an astute businesswoman, operating the Brookland-Logansport ferry. She also donated land and lumber to build the Brookland Methodist Church, forerunner of the first Methodist church in Joaquin, located in the northeast corner of the cemetery. Beginning as a family graveyard, Brookland Vemetery developed into a community burial ground, serving Shelby County and adjoining Desoto Parish, Louisiana. Pioneer settlers and their descendants are buried here, highlighted by military veterans from conflicts dating to the Civil War. Notable features include concrete and brick curbing, fraternal tombstones including woodmen of the world, masons, and order of the eastern star, and grave markers of granite, limestone and marble. The Brookland Cemetery association organized in 1912 and still maintains the site, holding an annual work day in may. The cemetery continues to serve the area while remaining a chronicle of local history.