Floyd Pioneer Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker at Floyd Pioneer Cemetery has to say — so listen close, because this one's got more layers than you might expect from a quiet acre of ground. In June of 1855, a man named John B. Floyd — born in Kentucky back in 1808 — bought himself nine hundred acres of Texas land.

That tract included this very spot. And later that same year, he packed up his family and settled right here. A man plants roots like that, he's thinking about the future.

Turns out he was also, before long, thinking about something else entirely — eternity. Sometime in the 1860s, John B. Floyd set aside one acre of that land as a family cemetery.

One acre, held apart from all the rest. Now, you might assume a family cemetery fills up with family. And sure, Floyd himself — born 1808, died 1879 — is buried there.

His wife Julia Ann, who passed in 1894, rests beside him. But this particular acre had a bigger heart than that. The earliest marked grave belongs to a Mrs.

A. Broad, who died in 1873. But before her stone was ever set, this ground had already received strangers.

Children — strangers' children — who died of diphtheria. Somebody had to put them somewhere, and John Floyd opened that gate. Then there's one more soul in that cemetery that arrived under considerably different circumstances: a bandit, killed at Floyd's Inn.

No fanfare, no family to claim him — just a plot of earth on Floyd's acre. A family cemetery that holds diphtheria orphans and a dead bandit alongside its own kin. That tells you something about the kind of place this was, and the kind of people who built it.

When Floyd's heirs eventually sold the surrounding land in 1910, they held onto one thing — control of that cemetery. Nine hundred acres could go, but not that acre. And since 1924, Restland Memorial Park has adjoined the pioneer cemetery, growing up around it on all sides.

The city kept building. The land kept changing hands. But that one acre John B.

Floyd set apart in the 1860s is still right there — holding strangers and family alike, same as it always did.

What the marker says

In June 1855, John B. Floyd (1808 - 1879) of Kentucky bought 900 acres of land that included this tract. Later that year he settled here with his family. In the 1860s he set aside this acre for a family cemetery. Early burials included strangers' children who died of diphtheria, and a bandit killed at Floyd's Inn. Mrs. A. Broad (d. 1873) has the earliest marked grave. Floyd and his wife Julia Ann (d. 1894) are buried here. Their heirs sold the land in 1910, retaining control of the cemetery. Since 1924, Restland Memorial Park has adjoined the pioneer cemetery.