DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker at Harrisburg-Jackson Cemetery has to say — and friend, this one deserves every word. The earliest origins of this cemetery are undocumented. That's how the marker puts it, plain as prairie sky.
No founding date, no ribbon-cutting, no name chiseled above the gate. Just the land, and the people who came to rest in it, and a story that builds itself quietly from the ground up. What we do know is this: African American burials likely began with the development of the local cattle industry and area railroads during the 1840s and 1850s.
By the 1870s, an African American community was well established in Harrisburg. And about that time, former slaves began doing something remarkable — they began building institutions for themselves. Fraternal organizations.
Mutual aid. The kind of structures that say, we are here, and we intend to stay. The Mutual Benevolent Association was chartered in 1878.
As a service to its members, the association arranged and sometimes financed burial services on this very site — located between Harrisburg and what apparently was a proposed freedman's town that never materialized. Think on that a moment. A town that was planned, that was hoped for, that never came to be.
And yet the cemetery remained, tended and purposeful. Ownership of the land changed hands several times over the years. Then in 1899, a benevolent organization called Loving Band of Hope acquired the property and cared for it for twenty-three years.
Twenty-three years of keepin the grass cut and the memory alive. In 1922, the Jackson Funeral Home — among the oldest African American funeral homes in Houston — bought the cemetery and used it as its primary burial ground until the last recorded burial in 1967. Now.
Among the graves here is one that'll stop you cold if you let it. Tom Blue. Once a body servant of Sam Houston.
Blue reported that he was present at the Battle of San Jacinto. He served Houston — and then, before the Emancipation Proclamation, he escaped to Mexico. Later, he returned.
Came back to Harrisburg to live out his long life. A man who witnessed one of the most consequential moments in Texas history, who crossed a border seeking his own freedom, who came home. He's here.
And he is not alone in that ground. Steve Ray is buried here — a rodeo rider and cowboy on the Samuel Allen Ranch in Pasadena. George W.
Sanders, a Black civic leader. Wilson Burley, who fought in the Civil War with the 84th U.S. Colored Infantry.
Austin C. Winfree, a buffalo soldier who served in Cuba during the Spanish-American War. And veterans of World War I.
Slaves. Former slaves. Cowboys.
Soldiers. Civic leaders. Men who rode in rodeos and men who rode into battle.
The marker calls this cemetery a chronicle of the African American slaves, former slaves, and pioneers of Harrisburg and of Texas. That's exactly what it is. Not a footnote.
A chronicle. Written in stone, in silence, on a piece of ground that outlasted a benevolent association, a proposed town that never rose, and a century and a half of change. Some stories don't have a loud ending.
This one just has the truth — and that's more than enough.
What the marker says
The earliest origins of this cemetery are undocumented. African American burials likely began with development of the local cattle industry and area railroads during the 1840s and 1850s. By the 1870s an African American community was well established in Harrisburg. About that time, former slaves began to establish their own fraternal organizations. The Mutual Benevolent Association was chartered in 1878. As a service to its members, the association arranged and sometimes financed burial services on this site, located between Harrisburg and what apparently was a proposed freedman's town which never materialized. Ownership of the land changed several times in the ensuing years, and a benevolent organization called Loving Band of Hope acquired the property in 1899, caring for the cemetery for 23 years. In 1922, the Jackson Funeral Home, among the oldest African American funeral homes in Houston, bought the cemetery property and used it as its primary burial ground until the last recorded burial in 1967. Among the graves is that of Tom Blue, once a body servant of Sam Houston. Blue reported that he was present at the Battle of San Jacinto. He served Houston until escaping to Mexico before the Emancipation Proclamation and later returned to live out his long life in Harrisburg. Also buried here are Steve Ray, a rodeo rider and cowboy on the Samuel Allen Ranch in Pasadena; black civic leader George W. Sanders; Wilson Burley, who fought in the Civil War in the 84th U.S. Colored Infantry; Austin C. Winfree, a buffalo soldier who served in Cuba during the Spanish American War; and veterans of World War I. The cemetery is a chronicle of the African American slaves, former slaves and pioneers of Harrisburg and of Texas. (2000)