Harmony Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Harmony Cemetery in Walker County. Now, every good graveyard has a story, and this one starts, as so many do, with a name that almost nobody remembers anymore. According to oral history, the first person laid to rest in this ground was a man named Vincent Herlock.

He shows up in the 1850 census of Walker County, a real enough man, with a wife and four sons beside him. Then January of 1851 comes along, and Herlock is gone. Just like that.

And for a time, people called this place Herlock Cemetery, which is about as honest a memorial as a patch of Texas earth can offer. Then the years kept rolling, the way they do. Through the 1860s and into the 1870s, members of the Murray and Goolsby families were brought here too, and for a spell the graveyard picked up the Goolsby name.

So this cemetery has worn more than one name, carried more than one community's grief. Then 1906 arrives, and something new takes root. The Harmony Missionary Baptist Church, which had been worshipping over in the Sion community about four miles north of here, was reestablished right on this site.

A church on a cemetery ground. The living and the departed sharing the same few acres of Walker County soil. That arrangement held for a while, but by the 1930s the church was disbanded, and without a congregation to keep an eye on things, the cemetery fell into disrepair.

Headstones and memories both have a way of fading when nobody's tending them. But here's where the story turns, and turns well. Sometime in the 1970s, a cemetery association was formed, people who decided this ground was worth caring for.

They came back. And because of that, Harmony Cemetery stands today as what the marker calls it: a chronicle of the pioneer settlers of Walker County. Not just a graveyard.

A chronicle. Vincent Herlock would probably appreciate knowing his January is still being told.

What the marker says

According to oral history, the first person buried here was Vincent Herlock, who appeared in the 1850 census of Walker County with his wife and four sons. Herlock died in January 1851, and the cemetery was known for a time as Herlock Cemetery. Other 1860s and 1870s burials included those of members of the Murray and Goolsby families, and the graveyard was known by the Goolsby name as well. In 1906 the Harmony Missionary Baptist Church, formerly of the Sion community (4 miles north), was reestablished on this site. After the church was disbanded in the 1930s, the cemetery fell into disrepair. A cemetery association was formed i n the 1970s to care for the site. The cemetery remains a chronicle of the pioneer settlers of Walker County. (2000)