Douglassville Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Douglassville Cemetery, out in Cass County. Now, every cemetery's got a story underneath the story, and this one starts with a ferryman. Williamson Petty, born in 1820, made his living working the Sulphur River, moving folks and freight from one bank to the other.

In 1850, he settled a land claim out in this corner of East Texas. And somewhere in that generous heart of his, he set aside a piece of that ground, donated it, so the community would have a place to lay its dead to rest. Then came the Colonel.

John C. Douglass, born in 1818, arrived from Georgia. In 1855, he bought up all of the Petty claim that hadn't already been reserved for a school and a church.

That's the thing about this stretch of land: people kept carving out space for the things that mattered. Education. Worship.

And remembrance. Douglass gave his name to a town, and the town gave its name to this cemetery. The earliest stone that anybody can still read today dates to 1859.

It marks the resting place of Mrs. Henrietta Cook and her infant twins. Three souls together.

You stop in front of a stone like that, and the world gets quiet for a minute. Petty would not live to see much of what followed. He died in 1861.

Douglass died in 1863. Both men gone before the ground they shaped had found its full purpose. The cemetery kept growing.

More land was added in 1928, and again in 1939. By now, about four hundred graves rest here, watched over by a governing association that keeps the place tended and accounted for. Four hundred graves, and the first one legible goes back to 1859.

A ferryman's donation. A Colonel's town. And three names on a stone that stopped time for anybody willing to stand still long enough to read it.

What the marker says

Williamson Petty (1820-61), Sulphur River ferryman, donated land for this cemetery from a claim which he settled in 1850. Col. John C. Douglass (1818-63), from Georgia, bought in 1855 all of the Petty claim not previously reserved for school and church. The cemetery took its name from his town of Douglassville. The earliest legible stone (1859) marks the grave site of Mrs. Henrietta Cook and her infant twins. Additional land was acquired in 1928 and 1939. The cemetery has about 400 graves and a governing association.