Farrsville Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Farrsville Cemetery, out in Newton County. Now, every community's got to start somewhere, and this one started with a Methodist minister. Alfred Farr arrived in Newton County prior to 1860, and the land and life that gathered around his homesite came to be known as Farrsville.

Simple as that. A man of the cloth plants roots, and a community grows up around him. But before the town had much of a name, the ground was already keeping its own records.

There's a cemetery at this site, and its first name wasn't Farrsville Cemetery at all. It was called Hines Cemetery. A man named M.D.

Hines, Sr., owned a homestead nearby, and five of the early graves there bear the Hines name. The land and the family were bound up together the way things were back then. The earliest known burial is that of Jane Victor Smith, who died in 1859.

Before the county had been formally organized, before anyone had thought to make it official, the ground was already receiving the departed. And here's the thing about official. The site wasn't officially designated as a cemetery until 1878, when William Smith deeded what the document called a two acre tract reserved for church, school house and grave yard.

Two acres. Set aside for the living to worship, to learn, and to remember the dead. That deed made it real on paper, even though the ground had been doing that work for nearly twenty years already.

The name Hines Cemetery held for well over a century. Then, in 1992, with the creation of the Farrsville Cemetery Association, the name was officially changed to Farrsville Cemetery. A community finally put its own name on the place where it had been laying its people to rest all along.

Some things take time to become what they already are.

What the marker says

Methodist minister Alfred Farr arrived in Newton County prior to 1860, and the community that grew around his homesite came to be known as Farrsville. The cemetery established at this site was first called Hines Cemetery. M.D. Hines, Sr., owned a homestead near the burial ground, and five early graves bear the name Hines. The earliest known burial is that of Jane Victor Smith, who died in 1859. The site was not officially designated as a cemetery until William Smith deeded a "two acre tract reserved for church, school house and grave yard" in 1878. The name of the burial ground was officially changed to Farrsville Cemetery in 1992 upon the creation of the Farrsville Cemetery Association. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2001