Farmer Cemetery

Duane's take

The official marker for Farmer Cemetery in Young County is the one telling this story, and I'm just the voice it's riding in on. Now, most towns out here in Texas got their start from a railroad, or a river crossing, or some government man drawing a line on a map. Farmer, Texas got its start from a preacher with a plan.

In 1877, a Baptist preacher by the name of W.H. Farmer moved his family out to this land. And he did not come to simply homestead and be quiet about it.

He established a store. He established a post office. He established a Baptist church.

And he set aside ground for a cemetery, where the first burials date back to 1880. Now you plant a church, a store, and a post office in the same neighborhood, and people will come. Sure enough, before long there were approximately 150 residents in the community of Farmer.

By 1894, the town was officially platted, which is the kind of formal recognition that says, yes, this place is real, this place is here, put it on the map. And it kept growing. Several businesses took root.

Three churches served the community. A Masonic lodge went up. And, because Texans have always known that a town without a baseball team is just a wide spot in the road, Farmer had one of those too.

But the land out here does not make things easy. Heavy rains came. Long droughts followed.

The kind of conditions that wear on a community, year after year, and ask it a quiet but serious question: are you staying? And Farmer answered yes. Through all of it, the town held a steady population.

Then came World War II. And that changed the arithmetic of a small town in ways no drought ever could. Men and women left to serve in the military.

Others left to find work in urban centers. When a community that size sends its people out into a war and a changing world, some of them don't come back to stay. And many didn't.

But some families stayed. They stayed, and they kept tending this ground. The cemetery is maintained today by an association, kept up by the descendants of the people who built that town around a preacher's vision back in 1877.

The burial ground is still here. And the names carved into its markers, all those family names standing quietly in Young County, they serve as witness to the early town of Farmer. The town may have thinned out over the decades, but the names don't lie.

Something was built here. Something real.

What the marker says

In 1877, Baptist preacher W.H. Farmer moved his family to land here. He established the Farmer store, post office, Baptist church and cemetery, where the first burials date to 1880. There were soon approximately 150 residents in Farmer, which was officially platted in 1894. The town grew to include several businesses, three churches, a Masonic lodge and a baseball team. Despite adverse conditions, including heavy rains and long droughts, the town maintained a steady population until World War II, when many men and women left to serve in the military or find work in urban centers. Since that time, the families that stayed in the community have continued to use the cemetery, which is maintained by an association. The burial ground and the many names found among its markers serve as witness to the early town of Farmer. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2002