DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker for Frio Town Cemetery tells it, and I'll do my best to honor every word. Now, before there was a Pearsall, before there was a railroad cutting across this south Texas brush country, there was Frio Town. Founded in 1871, it was the first county seat of Frio County — the place folks looked to as the center of something new being built out here on the frontier.
They raised a courthouse in 1876. Families put down roots, built homes, planted themselves in rocky ground and hot sun and called it theirs. Then came the International and Great Northern Railroad.
In 1881, that line went up from San Antonio all the way to Laredo — and it bypassed Frio Town. Didn't even slow down. And when the railroad goes somewhere else, well, so does everything else.
By 1883, the new town of Pearsall — sixteen miles to the east, sitting right there on the rail line — had taken the county seat along with it. Frio Town didn't disappear overnight, but it faded. The courthouse, the homes, the whole idea of that place — most of it is gone now.
Most of it. Out here, quiet as the brush around it, the Frio Town Cemetery remains. One of the few physical reminders that any of this ever happened.
And cemeteries, they tell a different kind of history than courthouses do. They don't lie, and they don't move on. The first burials came in 1873 — and neither one of them was peaceful.
Calvin Massey, born in 1797, was killed by Indians that year. And Robert Wesley Hiler, born in 1855, died in a horse riding accident that same year. Eighteen seventy-three.
The community wasn't even two years old, and it was already burying its own. Among those who settled and stayed and are interred here: Ben Slaughter, born 1813, died 1893, and his wife Minerva, born 1817, died 1895, along with their descendants. And the names of other pioneer families ring out across these grounds — Roberts, Hiler, Little, Loxton, Taylor, Hattox, Blackaller, and Minus.
People who came out here and made a life in the hardscrabble of early Frio County. But there's one row of graves that stops you cold. Six men — six — killed in an Indian raid on the William J.
Slaughter sheep ranch in 1876, buried together in a row. That's not a footnote. That's a wound the community carried, laid side by side in the earth.
And then there are the small graves. The marker notes, with quiet plainness, that the cemetery contains the burials of a number of infants and small children — a reflection, it says, of harsh conditions on the frontier. There's nothing to add to that.
The ground says it all. A number of the early graves here are unmarked. Names lost to time, to weather, to the simple hard math of surviving on the edge of everything.
But the cemetery itself endures — a testament, the marker calls it, to the county's early pioneer history. Frio Town is gone. The county seat moved on.
The railroad never looked back. But these folks? They're still here.
Sixteen miles from where the rest of the world decided to be — and they are not going anywhere.
What the marker says
Founded in 1871, Frio Town served as the first county seat of Frio County. A courthouse was built in 1876, and a number of families built homes in the area. The International and Great Northern Railroad built a line from San Antonio to Laredo in 1881, bypassing Frio Town. By 1883 the new town of Pearsall (16 mi. E) on the rail line became the new county seat. One of the few physical reminders of the historic Frio Town community, this cemetery stands as a testament to the county's early pioneer history. The first burials occurred in 1873, when Calvin Massey (1797-1873) was killed by Indians, and Robert Wesley Hiler (1855-1873) died in a horse riding accident. Among the pioneer settlers interred here are Ben (1813-1893) and Minerva (1817-1895) Slaughter and their descendants, as well as members of the Roberts, Hiler, Little, Loxton, Taylor, Hattox, Blackaller, and Minus families. A number of early graves are unmarked. Six men killed in an Indian raid on the William J. Slaughter sheep ranch in 1876 are buried together in a row of graves. The cemetery also contains the burials of a number of infants and small children, a reflection of harsh conditions on the frontier. (1991)