DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just the voice carrying it down the road. Out here in Lamar County, tucked into the land, there's a place called Hickory Grove Black Cemetery — and the ground itself holds a story that goes all the way back to the 1800s. This is the resting place of former slaves, freedmen, and descendants of African Americans who made their lives here.
That's worth sitting with for a moment before we go any further. These were people who survived the unsurvivable, and then they built something — families, communities, roots deep enough to last generations. The land remembers them.
Now, in 1881, a man named Samuel Swann and his wife Dicie Lucinda — she was born a Lee, Dicie Lucinda Lee — bought 153 acres from W. T. and Cornelia Booth. That purchase included the very site where this cemetery stands.
And already, the ground had meaning. Dicie's mother, Cherry Lee, had come to Lamar County from Alabama — she came with Herbert Lee and his family and his slaves. Cherry Lee passed in 1883, and she holds the distinction of being the earliest marked burial in this cemetery.
Then, in 1899, Samuel Swann took three acres of that land and deeded it to the Methodist Episcopal Church to serve as a burial ground. That act of intention — setting aside earth, making it sacred, making it official — that says something about the kind of man Samuel Swann was. Among those who have been laid to rest here: military veterans, a preacher, masons, Eastern Star members, community leaders, and family after family who called this corner of Texas home across the generations.
There is no footnote version of this place. It is not a side note. It is the story.
What the marker says
This historic burial ground is the resting place of former slaves, freedmen and descendants of African Americans who came here in the 1800s. Samuel and Dicie Lucinda (Lee) Swann bought 153 acres, including this cemetery site, from W. T. and Cornelia Booth in 1881. Dicie's mother Cherry Lee (d. 1883) is the earliest marked burial here. She came to Lamar County from Alabama with Herbert Lee and his family and slaves. In 1899, Samuel Swann deeded three acres to the Methodist Episcopal Church as a burial ground. Among those buried here are military veterans, a preacher, several masons and eastern star members, community leaders and families who have called this area home for generations.