Eureka Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker says about Eureka Cemetery, out in Hill County. Settle in, because this one asks something of you. Back in the 1870s, families started showing up in a part of Hill County drawn by something simple and powerful: rich, blackland soil.

Cotton country. They called the community Eureka, and they came to farm. The Kimmons family, the Eaglestons, the McDaniels, the Faries, the Clacks, the Londons, the Hambrights, the Priddys, the Hamiltons, the Wilsons.

Names that would get carved into stone before long. Now, Eureka didn't have a cotton gin. Didn't have a store either.

For those things, folks depended on nearby Lovelace and Itasca. But the community did have a school and a Cumberland Presbyterian Church, and for a while, that was enough to hold a place together. Oral tradition says the first burial on this ground was a young niece of William R.

Kimmons, the man who owned the property. The tradition is quiet on the details of her name, her age, the year. Just that she was young, and she was first.

That's how memory sometimes carries a thing: gently, without too many particulars. The earliest burial with documentation, though, is Willie D. Kimmons, who died in 1887.

An infant. The son of W.R. Kimmons, who would himself live until 1931, and Ella Eagleston Kimmons, who lived until 1934.

After they laid little Willie in that ground, the Kimmons family opened the graveyard to their friends and neighbors. That's the kind of gesture that turns a private sorrow into a shared one. And the neighbors came.

Twenty marked graves in Eureka Cemetery. Thirteen of them are for children less than ten years of age. Sit with that number.

Thirteen out of twenty. In that wooded setting, with its interior fencing and curbing and vertical stones, the arithmetic of loss is right there in front of you, quiet and unhurried. For generations, from the mid-to-late twentieth century, the Kimmons-Eagleston family kept watch over that ground.

Then in 2008, after state and county preservationists stirred up fresh interest, the Eureka Cemetery Association formed to carry on the maintenance. The schoolhouse is gone now. The church building is gone.

The community of Eureka, with its cotton fields and its blackland ambitions, has faded from the physical world. But the cemetery remains. The marker calls it the only physical reminder of the community's early history, a chronicle of its pioneers.

Thirteen children, a handful of adults, and a family that kept the gate for over a century. That's Eureka. That's what's left, and it turns out it's enough to tell the whole story.

What the marker says

This burial ground served the early residents of the agricultural Eureka community. Eureka was settled in the 1870s mostly by residents looking to farm cotton in the region’s rich, blackland soil. The community did not have a cotton gin or store, depending on nearby Lovelace and Itasca, but it did have a school and Cumberland Presbyterian Church. Early Eureka settlers included the Kimmons, Eagleston, McDaniel, Faries, Clack, London, Hambright, Priddy, Hamilton and Wilson families. Oral tradition relates that the first burial here was of a young niece of William R. Kimmons (d. 1931), who owned the property. The earliest documented burial in Eureka Cemetery, though, is of Willie D. Kimmons (d. 1887), the infant son of W.R. and Ella (Eagleston) Kimmons (d. 1934). After this interment, the Kimmons opened the graveyard to their friends and neighbors. Eureka Cemetery features interior fencing, curbing and vertical stones in a wooded setting. Of the 20 marked graves in Eureka Cemetery, 13 are for children less than 10 years of age. From the mid-to-late 20th century, the Kimmons-Eagleston family cared for the graveyard. In 2008, the Eureka Cemetery Association formed to maintain the burial ground after interest was spurred by state and county preservationists. Today, with the old schoolhouse and church building gone, Eureka Cemetery is the only physical reminder of the community’s early history, and remains as a chronicle of its pioneers.