Buena Vista Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Out here in Shelby County, there's a piece of ground that has been holding stories longer than most folks around here can remember. The Buena Vista Cemetery.

And like a lot of the best stories in Texas, this one starts with a community, a man, and a gift of land. The Buena Vista community organized in 1848, and a man named Joseph Penn Burns, who had come all the way from South Carolina, donated the land that would become this burial ground. Now, that's a particular kind of generosity.

You don't give land for a cemetery because you're thinking about today. You give it because you're thinking about everything that comes after. The earliest marked grave here dates to 1851.

But here's the thing the marker is careful to point out. It is believed there is at least one earlier burial, one that predates that 1851 stone entirely. That would be Burns' own wife, Mary Elizabeth, born a Richards, who died in 1843.

Her resting place may be here, quiet and unmarked, the kind of presence that haunts a place without announcing itself. Over the years, prominent businessmen from the settlement's early years were laid to rest in this ground as well. And veterans.

Men who had served in conflicts stretching all the way back to the War of 1812. Think about that the next time you walk through an old Texas cemetery and wonder who these people were. Some of them carried histories that reached back further than Texas itself.

Now, the town of Buena Vista had its moment. But the 1880s brought a nearby rail line, and with it came Timpson, and the town declined. That's how it goes sometimes.

The railroad giveth, and the railroad taketh away. But here's what didn't go anywhere. The cemetery stayed.

And in 1986, the Buena Vista Cemetery Association Perpetual Care Fund formed to make sure it keeps staying. To maintain it, tend it, remember it. The town may have faded, but this ground has not.

Buena Vista Cemetery. Still here. Still keeping its people.

What the marker says

This cemetery serves the Buena Vista community, which organized in 1848. Joseph Penn Burns, a native of South Carolina, donated land for the burial ground. The earliest marked grave dates to 1851, though it is believed there is at least one earlier burial, that of Burns' wife, Mary Elizabeth (Richards) (d. 1843). Several prominent businessmen from the settlement's early years are also interred here, as are veterans from conflicts dating to the War of 1812. The Buena Vista Cemetery Association Perpetual Care Fund formed in 1986 to maintain the burial ground. Though the town declined in the 1880s when a nearby rail line established Timpson, the cemetery remains a landmark of the Buena Vista community. Historic Texas Cemetery – 2006