Cedar Park Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, the way I understand the story of Cedar Park Cemetery. George W. and Harriett Cluck came to this part of Williamson County in the early 1870s, not long after they'd made the journey back from a cattle drive on the Chisholm Trail. They built a log home, put down roots, and by most accounts were instrumental in the development of the community around them.

That's the kind of people they were. The kind you build a place around. Now, the story of this cemetery, it doesn't start with ambition or planning.

It starts with grief. In 1901, the Clucks lost an infant grandson. His name was Emmett A.

Cluck. And in the wake of that loss, George and Harriett did what people of that era and that character so often did. They set aside a piece of their own farm as a family burial ground.

A quiet corner of the land they'd worked, given over to remembrance. But land like that, in a community like this, has a way of becoming something larger than one family's sorrow. Neighbors came.

Others were laid to rest there. What began as a private grief became a shared one. The graveyard grew into a community cemetery, and in 1912 it was formally deeded as such.

George and Harriett Cluck are buried there too, now, alongside the family members and neighbors who followed. They came back from the Chisholm Trail and built something. Turns out the most lasting thing they built was a place to rest.

What the marker says

George W. and Harriett Cluck settled in this area with their family in the early 1870s, soon after they returned from a cattle drive on the Chisholm Trail. They built a log home and were instrumental in the community's development. In 1901, upon the death of their infant grandson, Emmett A. Cluck, the couple set aside land on their farm for a family burial ground. The family graveyard became a community cemetery and was formally deeded as such in 1912. George and Harriett Cluck are buried here, along with many family members and neighbors. (1989)