Clark-Dickey and Smith Cemeteries

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, as best as Duane can carry it to you. Way out in Sabine County, along the Big Sandy Creek, two small cemeteries sit quiet in the trees. And if you know how to listen, they'll tell you about the people who came here first, before most of Texas even knew this corner existed.

William and Mahala Graham Clark were among those earliest arrivals. They had settled in the Big Sandy Creek area before 1837. Before 1837.

Let that sink in a moment. That puts them here at the very edge of memory, planting roots in ground that had barely been mapped. William Clark lived out his years on that land, and when he died in 1856, he left behind what is now the oldest marked grave in the Clark-Dickey Cemetery.

But the marker is careful to remind us that William may not have been the first to rest here. It is believed that earlier pioneers camped near this very spot and buried their dead in unmarked graves. No names.

No stones. Just the earth keeping its secrets, the way it always does. Then there is a second story running alongside the first.

In 1850, a man named Obediah Jackson Smith and a woman named Elizabeth Chapman bought land from William F. Clark. They put down their own roots in this same stretch of Big Sandy Creek country.

Obediah died in 1868, and he rests in what is now called the Smith Cemetery. His is the only marked grave there. Though the marker tells us it is likely that family members are also buried nearby, again without stones, again without names.

Two cemeteries. Two families. Unmarked graves holding stories we will never fully recover.

The marker says these two cemeteries are the last physical remnants of the Big Sandy Creek community. Not the grandest remnants. Not the most celebrated.

The last ones. Everything else, the homes, the fields, the daily life of the people who built something out here before 1837, it is all gone. Only the graves remain, and they are doing their level best to hold the line against forgetting.

Some places, the land remembers even when nobody else does.

What the marker says

William and Mahala Graham Clark settled in the Big Sandy Creek area before 1837. William died in 1856 and his is the oldest marked grave in the Clark-Dickey Cemetery. It is believed that earlier pioneers camped near here and buried their dead in unmarked graves. In 1850 Obediah Jackson Smith and Elizabeth Chapman bought land from William F. Clark. Obediah died in 1868; his is the only marked grave in the Smith Cemetery. It is likely that family members are also buried nearby. These two cemeteries are the last physical remnants of the Big Sandy Creek community.