DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker at Clinton Cemetery has to say — and it's quite a story for a quiet piece of ground out in Hunt County. Now, every good cemetery has an origin story, and this one starts the way the best Texas tales do: with an unknown cowboy. Nobody recorded his name.
Nobody left much of a trace. But according to local legend, when that cowboy died, he was buried near this very site — with the permission of a landowner named James Massay. And in that single act of permission, Massay did something that would outlast almost everything else he ever touched.
He designated the spot as a community cemetery. But James Massay wasn't done shaping this corner of Hunt County. He also gave the land for a railroad right-of-way, and along that right-of-way, a town called Clinton was built.
One man, two gifts — a graveyard and a railroad corridor — and a whole little community rose up around them. The earliest marked grave belongs to R. J.
McAdams, wife of J. E. McAdams, born in 1836 and gone by 1859.
She was laid to rest here before most folks in Hunt County had even heard of this place. Whatever the town would become, she was already waiting. The village got its first official name in 1899 — Massayville, a natural enough tribute to the man who'd made so much of it possible.
But names have a way of changing out here. The town was later renamed Clinton, this time for Charles S. Clinton, an official of the Cotton Belt Railway.
The railroad that Massay's land helped make possible had now lent the place a whole new identity. And then — the way it goes with so many small Texas towns — Clinton faded. By 1998, more than five hundred graves and a few scattered homes in the vicinity were all that remained of the Clinton community.
The cowboy, the landowner, the pioneers, the railroad official — all of it compressed now into headstones and quiet. The marker calls this cemetery a record of the pioneers of Hunt County. And that's exactly right.
Sometimes a graveyard is the most honest history a place has left to tell.
What the marker says
According to local legend, this graveyard originated when an unknown cowboy was buried near this site with the permission of landowner James Massay, who designated the spot as a community cemetery. Massay also gave the land for a railroad right-of-way along which the town of Clinton was built. The earliest marked grave in the cemetery is that of R. J. McAdams (1836-1859), wife of J. E. McAdams. The village was named Massayville in 1899, but was later renamed Clinton for Charles S. Clinton, an official of the Cotton Belt Railway. More than 500 graves in this cemetery and a few scattered homes in the vicinity were all that remained of the Clinton community in 1998. The cemetery is a record of the pioneers of Hunt County. (1998)