Brown Family Cemetery

Duane's take

The way I tell it, I'm going by what the official marker says, so let's see what it has to say. Out in Limestone County, not far from the old community of Eutaw, there's a stretch of ground that holds the memory of a family who put down roots and never quite let go. This is the Brown Family Cemetery, and the story starts, as so many Texas stories do, with somebody leaving somewhere else behind.

Ervin Brown was born in North Carolina in 1801. His wife Matilda came into this world in 1807. Together, they made their way to Washington County, Texas, in 1846, and that was just the beginning of their westward lean.

In 1857, Ervin and Matilda moved their family again, this time to a sixteen-hundred-acre farm in Limestone County, near Eutaw. Sixteen hundred acres. That's not a farm, that's a statement.

Ervin wasn't just a man of land. In 1859, he became a charter member of the Eutaw Masonic Lodge. A founding member.

The kind of man who doesn't just join things, he helps build them from the ground up. Both Ervin and Matilda are buried in this very cemetery, which tells you something about how far they'd come and how firmly they'd decided to stay. Now Ervin and Matilda had sons, and those sons carried the family name into some remarkable territory.

Their son Thomas Jefferson Brown, known as T. J., served as a Confederate captain in the Civil War. That alone would be a story.

But T. J. went on to serve as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas, from 1911 to 1915. A captain in wartime, a chief justice in peace.

T. J. Brown is not buried here, the marker is careful to tell us, but his name is woven into this place all the same.

Then there's the other son, James Petty Brown, J. P. He also served as a captain in the Confederate Army during the Civil War.

After the war, J. P. was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1879. His wife, Mary Ann Brown, holds a quiet but significant place in this cemetery.

She is the earliest documented burial here, having died on April 26, 1865. The war had barely drawn its last breath when Mary Ann was laid to rest in this ground. J.

P. and Mary Ann had a son named Gibson A. Brown, and Gibson grew into what the marker calls a prominent figure in Texas and Oklahoma. Here's where the story gets interesting, and a little bit lawyerly.

In 1896, Gibson successfully argued for legislation to protect property owners who had been caught in the middle of a U.S. Supreme Court decision. That decision had marked the South Fork of the Red River as the official boundary between Texas and Oklahoma, and it left certain property owners in a very uncomfortable legal position.

Gibson Brown stepped in and made the argument that mattered. The marker notes, as a matter of record, that neither T. J.

Brown nor Gibson Brown are buried here. But Ervin and Matilda are. And the descendants of this family have kept the cemetery in use across the generations, which means the Browns didn't just settle Limestone County.

In a way that counts, they never left.

What the marker says

The Brown Family Cemetery traces its origin to the settlement of North Carolina native Ervin Brown (1801-1875) and his wife Matilda (1807-1871) in Washington County, Texas, in 1846. Ervin and Matilda moved their family to a 1600-acre farm in Limestone County near the community of Eutaw in 1857. Ervin was a charter member of the Eutaw Masonic Lodge in 1859. Ervin and Matilda are both buried in this cemetery. Their son, Thomas Jefferson (T. J.), served as a Confederate captain in the Civil War and later as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Texas from 1911 to 1915. The earliest documented burial here was that of Mary Ann Brown, who died on April 26, 1865. She was the wife of Ervin's son James Petty (J. P.) Brown. A captain in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, J. P. was elected to the Texas House of Representatives in 1879. J. P. and Mary's son Gibson A. Brown became a prominent figure in Texas and Oklahoma. In 1896 he successfully argued for legislation to protect property owners affected by the U.S. Supreme Court decision marking the South Fork of the Red River the official boundary between the two states. Neither T. J. Brown nor Gibson Brown are buried here, however. The cemetery remains in use by Brown descendants. 1993