Corinth Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker says about Corinth Cemetery, out there in Erath County. Now, some places leave behind buildings, or old roads, or at least a name on a map. The Corinth community left behind something quieter.

A burial ground. That's it. That's all that remains, and it turns out, that's enough to tell the story.

It starts in 1880, when a North Carolina native by the name of Dr. William Wallace McNeill and his wife, Elizabeth Ann, she was a Bell before she married, deeded land to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South. The deed covered a church, a school, and a cemetery.

Three pillars of a community trying to plant itself in the Texas soil. Well, the church is gone. The school is gone.

But the cemetery, it held on. Beneath the ground there are graves that nobody can count, unmarked stones or no stones at all, the earliest burials from the late 1800s, names the earth has decided to keep to itself. The oldest grave that can be identified belongs to a Confederate Soldier, F.J.

Simpson, who died in 1899. Then there is Ethel Lewallen, an artist who was twice appointed Texas State Artist of the Year, and who died in 1988 and is buried here among those quiet, unnamed neighbors. Twice appointed.

That is not a small thing. And she rests in a place the world mostly forgot. Maybe she would have appreciated that, or maybe not.

The marker doesn't say. What it does say is that in 2003, the Corinth Cemetery Association formed, specifically to preserve and care for this place. Somebody looked at what was left of Corinth and decided it was worth tending.

A community that lost its church and its school still managed to keep its memory, because a few people showed up with their hands and their intention. That is the last remaining historic trace of Corinth. And somebody is watching over it.

What the marker says

In 1880, North Carolina native Dr. William Wallace McNeill and his wife, Elizabeth Ann (Bell), deeded land to the Methodist Episcopal Church, south, for a church, school and cemetery. The burial ground is the last remaining historic trace of the Corinth community. There are an unknown number of unmarked graves representing the cemetery's earliest burials in the late 1800s. The oldest grave is of Confederate Soldier F.J. Simpson, who died in 1899. Artist Ethel Lewallen, who was twice appointed Texas State Artist of the Year, died in 1988 and is buried here. The Corinth Cemetery Association formed in 2003 to preserve and care for this sacred place.