Compton Cemetery

Duane's take

Now, I'm going to tell you this one the way the official marker tells it, so let's set the record straight together. Somewhere out in Freestone County, there's a patch of ground that's been holding the memories of one family for well over a hundred years, and the marker standing there lays it out plain as a summer sky. This is the story of Compton Cemetery.

William Scott Compton was born in 1805, and his wife, Angelina Louisa Gunn Ward, in 1806. Before they ever set foot in Texas, William had already made himself a man of some standing. He served as a county judge and a state senator in Alabama, and he carried the credentials of an attorney and a banker.

Then came Texas. In 1852, William and Angelina purchased over three thousand acres in the settlement of Avant Prairie, a place that would later go by the name of Dew. Three thousand acres.

On that land they built a log home, barns, and quarters for their slaves. They were putting down roots the way people did in that era, deep and wide. But a cemetery has to begin somewhere, and this one began in sorrow.

The year was 1855, and the Comptons buried their eldest daughter here. Her name was Elizabeth Blackmon Compton Johnson, and she was the first to rest in this ground. After her came others, as the years rolled on.

Two of the Comptons' sons, Joseph, known as Jodie, and Felix Richard, both Confederate veterans of the Civil War, were laid to rest here as well. And then there was the next generation. Martha Jane, called Mattie, a Compton granddaughter, is buried here alongside her husband, George Walton White.

Now George White was something of a figure in his own right. He served as a Texas State Legislator in 1889 and again in 1891, he was a Baptist minister, and he was a charter member of the Corinth Baptist Church right there in Dew, Texas. A legislator, a preacher, and a founding member all in one man.

When George White was gone, his heirs took responsibility for the land, and in 1943 they formally set aside the cemetery property. For the next forty years after that, the cemetery received modest care from family members who were still living in the original settlement home that William and Angelina Compton had built. Think on that for a moment.

Descendants still in that same house, tending those same graves. Then in 1983, descendants of both the Compton and White families came together and formed an association, for the express purpose of maintaining the cemetery. The marker calls this place a well-preserved example of a small family cemetery.

And that's what it is. But it's also something more. It's a piece of ground that went from open prairie to a family's whole arc of living and dying, kept by the hands of people who never forgot whose land it was and whose bones it held.

What the marker says

William Scott Compton (1805-1882), and his wife, Angelina Louisa Gunn Ward (1806-1880) purchased over 3000 acres here in the settlement of Avant Prairie (later Dew) in 1852. On this acreage the Comptons built a log home, barns and quarters for their slaves. An attorney and banker, William served as a county judge and state senator in Alabama before moving to Texas. This cemetery began in 1855 with the burial of the Comptons' eldest daughter, Elizabeth Blackmon Compton Johnson. Also buried here are the Comptons' sons, Joseph (Jodie) and Felix Richard, both Confederate veterans of the Civil War; and their granddaughter, Martha (Mattie) Jane, and her husband George Walton White, Texas State Legislator (1889 and 1891), Baptist minister, and charter member of the Corinth Baptist Church in Dew, Texas. George White's heirs formally set aside the cemetery property in 1943 and for the next 40 years the cemetery received modest care from family members residing in the original settlement home built by William and Angelina Compton. Descendants of the Compton and White families formed an association in 1983 for the purpose of maintaining the cemetery. Compton Cemetery represents a well-preserved example of a small family cemetery.