Campbell Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the marker tells it, and here's how I'll tell it to you. Now, you want a story that knows how to hold its cards close to the chest, this one right here in Lamar County just might be your huckleberry. Campbell Cemetery.

Established 1843. That's the whole hand the marker lays down, and friend, sometimes that's enough. Eighteen forty-three.

Think about what that means for a moment. Texas had only been a republic for seven years. The ink on a lot of land grants was barely dry.

And somebody, somewhere in Lamar County, was already settin' aside ground. Consecrated ground. The kind of ground that says, we are stayin'.

We are puttin' down roots so deep that even the ones we lose will hold us here. That is what a cemetery established in 1843 is really sayin'. It isn't just a burial ground.

It's a declaration. Campbell Cemetery earned its designation as a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2012, and that recognition, well, it's the present day finally tipping its hat to something that was already ancient before most of us drew our first breath. Eighteen forty-three.

In Lamar County. Still here.

What the marker says

CAMPBELL CEMETERY ESTABLISHED 1843 HISTORIC TEXAS CEMETERY - 2012