Cedar Springs Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Cedar Springs Cemetery, Falls County. Now, most cemeteries will tell you their story if you know how to listen, and this one goes back further than the deed would have you believe.

The earliest marked burial is that of Thomas Roberts, born in 1817, laid to rest in 1874. But marked isn't the same as first. By the time anyone put pen to paper and deeded this land on March 4, 1901, at least twenty burials had already taken place here.

Twenty souls in the ground before the paperwork caught up with them. And beyond those twenty, there are at least a dozen graves with no marker at all, no name, no date, just the quiet certainty that someone was there. The land itself belongs to a name worth knowing: J.

G. W. Pierson, attorney and surveyor for Sterling Clack Robertson in the Robertson Colony.

Now look at where most of those early burials sit, clustered inside the fenced Pierson family plot, and the marker will tell you what that might mean: this may have originally been a family burial ground, a private piece of earth that slowly, the way these things do, became something more. Several veterans found their final rest here. Civil War soldiers, all of them.

Alamander Ervin Linder, born in 1823 and gone in 1921. Benjamin Almary Pierson, born 1840, died 1905. And John Thomas Daniel, born 1841, died 1891.

Three men who lived through the war and came home to Falls County, and stayed. That's the thing about Cedar Springs Cemetery. It isn't famous.

It isn't grand. The marker calls it what it is: a reminder of rural Falls County settlement. A place where the land remembers, even when the stones don't.

What the marker says

CEDAR SPRINGS CEMETERY ALTHOUGH THERE ARE AT LEAST A DOZEN UNMARKED GRAVES, THE EARLIEST MARKED BURIAL HERE IS THAT OF THOMAS ROBERTS (1817-1874). AT LEAST 20 BURIALS OCCURRED BEFORE THE LAND WAS DEEDED ON MARCH 4, 1901. THE CEMETERY IS ON LAND OWNED BY J. G. W. PIERSON, WHO WAS ATTORNEY AND SURVEYOR FOR STERLING CLACK ROBERTSON IN THE ROBERTSON COLONY. MOST EARLY BURIALS ARE LOCATED INSIDE THE FENCED PIERSON FAMILY PLOT, INDICATING THAT ORIGINALLY THIS MAY HAVE BEEN A FAMILY BURIAL GROUND. SEVERAL VETERANS ARE BURIED HERE, INCLUDING CIVIL WAR SOLDIERS ALAMANDER ERVIN LINDER (1823-1921), BENJAMIN ALMARY PIERSON (1840-1905) AND JOHN THOMAS DANIEL (1841-1891). THIS CEMETERY IS A REMINDER OF RURAL FALLS COUNTY SETTLEMENT. HISTORIC TEXAS CEMETERY - 2011