Elkins Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna do my best to honor every word. This is Duane, and this is Elkins Cemetery. Now settle in, because this little piece of Brown County ground has seen more history than most places three times its size.

It all traces back to 1876. That year, a noted pioneer minister named Noah T. Byars helped establish Live Oak Baptist Church, and a Civil War veteran by the name of Silas H.

Wood packed up his extended family, left Mississippi behind, and put down roots right here on land that included this very site. Two things happening at once, and both of them matter. The first recorded burial, a man named D.O.

Melton, came that same year, 1876. The ground was already keeping its own kind of record. Eight years on, in 1884, Wood donated about three acres, graveyard included, to Live Oak Baptist Church.

A generous thing. A lasting thing. The place had a name back then, Gholson, a name it shared with an area school.

In time it became Elkins, for the town that developed here. Community grew up around it. People were laid to rest in it.

Veterans of the Civil War, veterans of the First World War, pioneer families and their descendants, all finding their place in that same Brown County soil. One name worth pausing on: Confederate Lieutenant Colonel Isaac A. Melton.

When he was buried in 1910, fellow Confederate Civil War veterans came to pay their respects, and so did his Masonic friends. That funeral was an occasion. You can feel it even now.

Then came the Second World War, and with it something that doesn't happen often. The construction of Camp Bowie here temporarily displaced the entire Elkins community. The cemetery went quiet.

Interments ceased. Camp Bowie was discontinued in 1947, and after that, a rural community developed again, and the cemetery came back into use, just as steady and patient as the land itself. Today the Elkins Cemetery Association maintains it, and it still serves the community.

From 1876 to right now, that ground has never really stopped doing what it was always meant to do.

What the marker says

This cemetery traces its origin to 1876, when noted pioneer minister Noah T. Byars helped establish Live Oak Baptist Church. That year, Civil War veteran Silas H. Wood moved his extended family from Mississippi and settled on land which included this site. The first recorded burial was that of D.O. Melton in 1876. Wood donated about three acres including the graveyard to Live Oak Baptist Church in 1884. Known earlier as Gholson, a name it shared with an area school, it later was named Elkins for the town that developed here. The cemetery continued in use as a community graveyard until interments ceased when the construction of Camp Bowie here during World War II resulted in the temporary displacement of the Elkins community. Camp Bowie was discontinued in 1947, after which a rural community developed and the cemetery was again in use. Buried here are many of the area's pioneer families and their descendants; veterans of World War I; and at least three Civil War veterans, including Confederate Lieutenant Colonel Isaac A. Melton, whose funeral in 1910 was attended by fellow Confederate Civil War veterans and Masonic friends. The cemetery is maintained by the Elkins Cemetery Association and continues to serve the community. (1994)