Fulton Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. This is the story of a piece of ground in Bosque County that has gone by more than one name, and the reason for that change is woven into the lives of the people buried there. So pull up a chair.

Or a stretch of highway. Either works fine. The place we're talking about started out as the Morgan Cemetery, named for the land it sat on, land that belonged to a man named Daniel Morgan.

Daniel was born in Kentucky in 1818, and he made his way to Texas from Illinois with his family back in 1834. Now that is early. Texas wasn't even a state yet.

Morgan had roots here before most folks had even heard the word Texas spoken aloud. He served in the Civil War, Company F, 1st Regimental Infantry, 3rd Brigade, Texas State Troops. And in 1842, he married Sara Caroline Childress, born in 1826.

By 1878, Daniel had settled the family into Bosque County and purchased land along the eastern fork of the Bosque River. It's quiet country out there. Native grasses, wildflowers, trees standing like they've been there forever.

And in a way, some of them have. Now, the first burial in this cemetery, nobody knows exactly when it happened. The early graves were marked with common field stones, the kind you pick up out of the earth with your own hands because a carved stone costs money a pioneer family might not have.

So those first souls rest here without dates, without names that history can easily recover. The first burial with an actual marker, the first one we can point to and say with certainty, this is a person with a name and a date, that belongs to Martha A. Duke, and it goes back to 1880.

Only three Morgans are known to be buried in the cemetery that bore their name. Daniel himself passed in 1892. Caroline passed in 1892 as well.

And their grandson, John Henry Morgan, passed in 1964. The family is there, but they are outnumbered by their neighbors. Oral tradition says railroad workers and their relatives were buried here too, on account of how close the cemetery sits to the rail line.

Whether those workers had family nearby or just needed a resting place within reach, the land received them. Farmers, ranchers, veterans, members of fraternal organizations. Families with names like Jackson, Damron, Rhodes, Ownbey, Philips, and Fulton.

Simple pioneers, most of them, people who worked this rural stretch of Texas with their hands. Now here's where the name of the place starts to shift. In 1891, the children of Daniel Morgan deeded land to a man named J.W.

Fulton and others, serving as trustees. By 1906, the Morgan family had sold off all of their Bosque County holdings and moved on from the area. Sometime after 1892, the cemetery stopped being called the Morgan Cemetery.

It became the Fulton Cemetery, the name it carries to this day. A family plants roots, names a place after themselves by virtue of their presence, and then they leave. The name that stays belongs to someone else.

That's not a tragedy, exactly. It's just the way of things in a place where so many different people passed through and put down stakes and moved on, or stayed forever. Covered in native grasses and flowers, surrounded by trees, the Fulton Cemetery still holds the remains of many of those pioneers.

The field stones are still out there somewhere, unmarked, keeping their secrets. Martha A. Duke keeps hers too, except for the year.

And Daniel and Caroline Morgan, who gave the place its first name, rest in the ground they once owned, under a name that isn't theirs anymore.

What the marker says

This cemetery was originally known as the Morgan Cemetery due to its location on land owned by Daniel Morgan (1818-1892), a native of Kentucky. Morgan came to Texas from Illinois with his family in 1834. Morgan served in the Civil War in Company F, 1st Regimental Infantry, 3rd Brigade, Texas State Troops. In 1842, Morgan married Sara Caroline Childress (1826-1892) and, by 1878, Morgan relocated to Bosque County and purchased land along the eastern fork of the Bosque River. The date of the first burial is unknown as many early graves were marked with common field stones. The first marked burial is that of Martha A. Duke from 1880. Only three known Morgans are buried here: Daniel and Caroline passed in 1892 and their grandson, John Henry Morgan, passed in 1964. Other prevalent names include Jackson, Damron, Rhodes, Ownbey, Philips and Fulton. Oral tradition states that railroad workers and relatives were buried in the Morgan Cemetery due to its close proximity to the rail line. Most of the graves are of simple pioneers who worked as farmers or ranchers along with numerous veterans and persons associated with fraternal organizations. In 1891, the children of Daniel Morgan deeded land to J.W. Fulton and others as trustees. By 1906, the Morgan family had sold all of their Bosque county holdings and moved from the area. The name of the cemetery was changed to Fulton Cemetery sometime after 1892. Covered in native grasses and flowers and surrounded by trees, this historic cemetery contains the remains of many pioneers who settled this rural area.