Davis Cemetery

Duane's take

The way the marker tells it, and the way I'm about to tell it to you, this is the story of Davis Cemetery in Jasper County. Every name, every date, every detail comes straight from that stone. Here we go.

Back in 1836, a woman named Elizabeth Davis loaded up her family and came west out of Georgia. Three children in tow, James R., Malinda C., and Martha, and she planted roots right here in this corner of Jasper County. Now, Elizabeth was believed to be of Indian heritage, and that detail matters to everything that follows.

Five years after she arrived, in 1841, she received a land grant of 1,280 acres. That is not a small piece of ground. That is a statement.

This woman was here, and she intended to stay. Now, local tradition holds that the very first soul laid to rest in what would become Davis Cemetery was a sick Indian child taken in by Elizabeth herself. The marker is careful on this point.

It says tradition claims it. What the marker can say for certain is that the earliest marked gravesite belongs to Elizabeth Davis Kelly, born 1808, died 1873. Same family, same ground, same story that keeps folding back on itself.

For a good long while, this was strictly a family place. A private piece of eternity set aside for the Davis kin. But nothing stays private forever, not in a growing county.

Before 1900, sawmill and logging operations moved into the area, and with industry came people, and with people came the need for a place to put them to rest. The cemetery opened its arms to the broader community. Then in 1906, the ground was legally set aside in an 80-acre deed, transferred from Elizabeth's son, James R.

Davis, to his daughter Elizabeth Morgan. Three generations, one piece of land, one unbroken thread. Sometime after that, the North Antioch Primitive Baptist Church was erected right there on the cemetery grounds.

So the living came to worship alongside the dead, the way communities sometimes do when the history runs deep enough. Today, Davis Cemetery is still active. Still receiving.

It holds more than 370 marked graves, among them citizens of the Republic of Texas and veterans of the American Civil War. That is a lot of history in one piece of East Texas earth. It started with a woman who came from Georgia, believed to carry Indian blood, who took in a sick child and built something that outlasted everything except the land itself.

What the marker says

This cemetery was established within the original 1280-acre land grant conveyed to Elizabeth Davis in 1841. Elizabeth, believed to be of Indian heritage, brought her family of three children, James R., Malinda C., and Martha, from Georgia and settled in this area of Jasper County in 1836. Although local tradition claims that a sick Indian child taken in by Elizabeth Davis is the first person buried here, the earliest marked gravesite is that of elizabeth Davis Kelly (1808-1873). Initially used exclusively for family members, the Davis Cemetery became the burial site for other members of the community following the introduction of sawmill and logging operations into the area prior to 1900. The cemetery was legally set aside within an 80-acre deed transferred from Elizabeth Davis' son, James R., to his daughter Elizabeth Morgan in 1906. The North Antioch Primitive Baptist Church structure was later erected on the cemetery grounds. Still active as a community graveyard, the Davis Cemetery contains more than 370 marked graves, including interments of citizens of the Republic of Texas and veterans of the American Civil War.