DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker for Griffin-Methodist Cemetery in Liberty County tells it this way, and I'm just the voice carrying it down the road. Now, every old cemetery has a story, and this one starts with a man who'd already seen the fire. Jackson Hawkins Griffin came to Liberty in 1835 — and that alone tells you something about the kind of man he was.
Texas wasn't even Texas yet. Not officially. And when the revolution came, Griffin didn't sit it out.
He joined the Liberty Volunteers and participated in the Siege of Bexar. He'd been in the country barely a year and he was already in it up to his boots. After the fighting, Griffin settled near this very site.
His home became something of a waystation — a boarding house for families fresh off the road, new to the area, trying to find their footing. In 1843, two such men arrived from Louisiana: Jesse Daniel Lum and his son, Jesse Daniel Lum, Jr. They rented rooms in Griffin's home, and they stayed.
The elder Lum died in 1846. And here's where the land takes on a different kind of meaning. Griffin provided space on his property for use as a burial site.
A quiet corner of his land set aside for the dead. From that point on, people around Liberty knew it as Griffin Cemetery. But Griffin's own story wasn't finished.
In 1862 he enlisted in the Confederate Army. Two years later, in 1864, he was killed at the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee. The man who'd survived the Siege of Bexar, who'd opened his home to strangers, who'd given ground to the dead — he fell in Tennessee, far from Liberty.
His heirs sold the land to Dr. James P. Cooke.
And Dr. Cooke, in 1881, donated the cemetery property to the Liberty Methodist Church. When Dr.
Cooke himself died in 1892, he was interred right there on the grounds he had given away — and the burial ground took on a second name: Cooke Memorial Cemetery. For nearly a century after that, the Methodist church kept the graveyard as a private burial ground. Then, in 1981, a restoration program was undertaken, and the cemetery was reopened to public use.
So what you have here is a piece of land that passed from a revolutionary soldier to a boarding house keeper to a grieving neighbor's gesture to a Confederate casualty's heirs to a doctor to a church — and finally back to everyone. Griffin-Methodist Cemetery. Cooke Memorial Cemetery.
Liberty's past, buried and tended and opened again.
What the marker says
Jackson Hawkins Griffin (1818-1864) came to Liberty in 1835. A member of the Liberty Volunteers during the Texas Revolution, he participated in the Siege of Bexar. His home near this site was often used as a boarding house for families new to the area. Jesse Daniel Lum (1775-1846) and his son, Jesse Daniel Lum, Jr. (1822-1900), rented rooms in Griffin's home soon after they arrived here from Louisiana in 1843. When the elder Lum died in 1846, Griffin provided space on his land for use as a burial site. From that time, the plot of land was known locally as Griffin Cemetery. Jackson Griffin enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1862 and was killed in the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, in 1864. His heirs sold his land to Dr. James P. Cooke (1836-1892), who in turn donated the cemetery property to the Liberty Methodist Church in 1881. Dr. Cooke was interred here in 1892, and the burial ground is also known as Cooke Memorial Cemetery. The Methodist church maintained the graveyard as a private burial ground until 1981, when a restoration program was undertaken which reopened the cemetery to public use. This historic cemetery serves as a reminder of Liberty's past. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986