Garvin Memorial Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll give it to you straight as I can. Out here in Dallas County, there's a piece of ground that's been holdin' stories since the 1870s. Garvin Memorial Cemetery, they call it, and the name carries weight, because the land itself was a gift.

James G. Garvin was the man. Born in 1830, died in 1897, a former Dallas merchant who looked at this stretch of earth and decided it ought to belong to the community.

He didn't do it alone, either. His wife Eliza stood with him, and so did two brothers: Col. William L.

Crawford, born 1839, and Judge M. L. Crawford, born 1841.

Now those two were prominent attorneys of the county, and between a colonel and a judge, you had yourself some considerable standing behind this donation. William lived all the way to 1920. The judge, M.

L., passed in 1910. Between the four of them, they handed something permanent to the people who'd come to settle in this place. And those pioneer families came.

The graves here date from the 1870s; generation after generation of folks who built lives in this part of Texas and found their rest in this ground. Among them, several veterans of the Civil War. Men who had seen things that don't wash out easy.

And one name in particular stands apart from the rest. Col. Pleasant G.

Swor. Born 1834. He led an assault against Union forces at the Battle of Corinth.

Think on that a moment: a man who walked into that kind of fire, who carried men forward in one of the war's grinding engagements. He made it out. He came to this county.

He lived until 1878, and when the time came, this was the ground that received him. There's something in that, isn't there? A merchant, a pair of attorneys, a wife named Eliza (they gave away land so that people like Col.

Swor would have somewhere worthy to rest). The pioneer families who settled this area built their lives here, and this cemetery has been keepin' their names ever since the 1870s. That's the kind of gift that doesn't expire.

What the marker says

This burial ground served the pioneer families who settled in the area. Graves here date from the 1870s. The land for the cemetery was donated to the community by James G. Garvin (1830-1897), a former Dallas merchant, his wife Eliza, and brothers Col. William L. Crawford (1839-1920) and Judge M. L. Crawford (1841-1910), prominent attorneys of the county. Several veterans of the Civil War are interred here, including Col. Pleasant G. Swor (1834-1878), who led an assault against Union forces at the Battle of Corinth. (1980)