Goodall Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Back in 1846, a man named W.H. Everett packed up his life in Yellville, Marion County, Arkansas, and came down to settle on 320 acres of Texas ground.

Could be he figured this was the place to put down roots. And for a time, maybe it was. But then, just a few years after he arrived, something happened that has a way of stopping a man cold.

A little girl named Sarah Hornbeak passed away. She was born in 1847 and died in 1851, the daughter of Samuel and Harriet Hornbeak. And it was at her death that W.H.

Everett set aside a piece of that 320 acres as a cemetery. That's where this story begins, really. Not with land deeds and surveyor's chains, but with a child, and a man who decided that ground ought to be held sacred.

Then, in 1853, Everett did something. He went back to Yellville, back to Arkansas, and he brought his sister down to Texas with him. Her name was Nancy Everett Goodall, widow of William Goodall, and she didn't come alone.

She came with eight children. Eight. Now, one of those children was a boy named W.B.

Goodall, born in 1849, and he would go on to purchase this very property from his uncle, the same W.H. Everett who had settled it in the first place. W.B.

Goodall died in 1922, but by then that land and that cemetery had become something that carried the family name forward. Today, the Goodall Cemetery holds thirty marked graves and around nine more that have gone unmarked, quiet reminders that not every story gets written down. The Goodall Cemetery Association has made sure the place won't be forgotten though.

They've established a perpetual care fund, which means someone is always going to be tending to that ground. What started as a place set aside for one small girl in 1851 has kept on holding the memory of the people who settled here. That's the kind of story a piece of Texas dirt can carry, if you let it.

What the marker says

In 1846, W.H. Everett of Yellville, Marion County, Arkansas, settled on this 320 acres. He set aside this cemetery at the death of Sarah Hornbeak (1847-1851), daughter of Samuel and Harriet Hornbeak. In 1853 Everett brought his sister Nancy Everett Goodall, widow of William Goodall, and her eight children from Yellville. One of those children, W.B. Goodall (1849-1922), purchased this property from his uncle. There are 30 marked and about nine unmarked graves in this burial ground. Goodall Cemetery Association has established a perpetual care fund.