Erath County Poor Farm Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say, out there in Erath County. Now, the Texas Constitution of 1869 had a plan. Every county in the state was directed to establish what they called a Manual-Labor Poor-House, a place to care for indigent and poor inhabitants, and to put to work, quote, all persons committing petty offences.

That was the idea on paper. What it looked like on the ground, well, that took Erath County a little while to figure out. By 1881, the county commissioners got moving.

For six hundred and fifty dollars, they purchased a farm from a man named J.B. Hill, four miles from the county courthouse, out in the Smith Springs community. What they got for that price was a working piece of land, homes for the paupers and a superintendent, a water well, and a building fitted with bars for the convict laborers.

Not exactly a resort. But it was what it was. The first superintendent was a man named John Zimmerman.

He received forty dollars a month to manage and oversee the whole operation. The farm got to work, producin' cotton, peanuts, and other crops. Area doctors came out and provided medical care, usually without a fee.

County funds covered the medicine. And when someone passed, the county provided a coffin, and a cemetery was dedicated right there on the property. Here is the part that settles heavy.

No records have been found to identify the residents, or those interred in that cemetery. The people who lived out their last days on that farm, who worked that land, who were buried on that hill, their names are gone. Just gone.

The farm operated for more than fifty years. Then came the 1930s, and the federal New Deal programs began improving living conditions for many Americans, and the need for poor farms like this one faded away. When the Erath County Poor Farm finally closed, the last caretakers, Mr. and Mrs.

Sam Swanzy, took several of the remaining residents to live on property they owned near Huckabay. That was a kindness worth noting. Then, in 1935, a tornado struck the site and destroyed most of the buildings.

Four years later, in 1939, county commissioners deeded the two-hundred-and-sixty-acre site to Texas A&M, to be used as an experimental agricultural station. The land moved on. It found a new purpose.

But somebody remembered the people left in that cemetery. Starting in the 1980s, Boy Scout troops began restoring the grounds and marking the unidentified gravesites with crosses. The Erath County Poor Farm Cemetery Association carried that work forward.

No names to put on the markers. Just crosses, standing for citizens nobody recorded, nobody filed papers on, nobody left a name for. Sometimes a place keeps a story even when the story has no names in it.

That cemetery out in Smith Springs is exactly that kind of place.

What the marker says

In 1869, the Texas Constitution directed counties to establish a "Manual-Labor Poor-House" to care for "indigent and poor inhabitants" and provide work for "all persons committing petty offences." Erath County Commissioners started a poor farm in 1881. For $650, they purchased a farm from J.B. Hill four miles from the county courthouse in the Smith Springs community. The farm included homes for paupers and a superintendent, a water well, and a building with bars for convict laborers. John Zimmerman, the first superintendent, received $40 per month to manage and oversee the farm. The poor farm operated for more than fifty years. The farm produced cotton, peanuts, and other crops. Area doctors provided medical care, usually without a fee, and county funds paid for medicine. The county also provided a coffin upon death, and dedicated a cemetery on the property. No records have been found to identify residents or those interred at the poor farm cemetery. In the 1930s, federal new deal programs improved living conditions for many Americans, and the need for poor farms ended. When the Erath County Poor Farm closed, Mr. and Mrs. Sam Swanzy, the last caretakers, took several remaining residents to live on property they owned near Huckabay. In 1935, a tornado struck the site and destroyed most of the buildings. In 1939, county commissioners deeded the 260-acre site to Texas A&M as an experimental agricultural station. Restoration of the cemetery and the marking of unidentified gravesites with crosses, begun by boy scout troops in the 1980s and continued by the Erath County Poor Farm Cemetery Association, commemorates these unknown citizens.