Hicks Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Out in Jack County, there's a quiet piece of ground shaded by cedar and live oak trees, and if you slow down long enough to stand among those stones, you're standing inside a story that goes back to the 1880s. This is the tale of Hicks Cemetery.

Back when settlers were pushing into this corner of Texas, a community took root here. They called it Hicks, sometimes spelled Hix, named for a pioneer family that had come before. These were the kind of folks who were building something from nothing, and the first order of business, once you've got a community, is you've got to educate the children.

Cooper School opened its doors to the area beginning in 1885, with three men stepping up as first trustees: J.F. Middlebrooks, P. Paxton, and J.H.

Gregory. That school sat on land right next to where we're headed in this story, and it would serve this community for a long time. Now here's where the story takes a turn that asks something of you.

In 1889, George Washington Jamison and his wife Levicia, born a Morton, bought land from the William Ratliff Survey at this very site. They were settlers, part of that fabric of families weaving themselves into the Hicks community. And then came September of 1893.

That month, they buried their infant daughter Anna here. Just Anna. A small grave, a large grief.

And that, by all accounts, is how this piece of ground began its long quiet work as a burial place for the families of Hicks. The land around that first grave developed into a cemetery, a gathering place for the original settler families who had worked and worshipped and schooled their children in this community. Cooper School kept on, right there on the adjacent land, all the way until 1941, when it finally closed.

Today, Hicks Cemetery holds more than forty marked graves, and several that are unmarked. Those unmarked stones, or the absence of stones, carry their own kind of weight. The cedar and the live oak have grown up around all of it, throwing shade over the marked and the unmarked alike, over Anna Jamison and the pioneer families and everyone who followed.

Some places don't need to shout to be heard. This one just stands there in the shade and lets the years do the talking.

What the marker says

Settlers in the 1880s established a community here known as Hicks (also spelled Hix), named for a pioneer family. Cooper School served the area beginning in 1885, with J.F. Middlebrooks, P. Paxton and J.H. Gregory as first trustees. George Washington and Levicia (Morton) Jamison bought land from the William Ratliff Survey at this site in 1889 and buried their infant daughter Anna here in September 1893. The surrounding land developed as a burial ground for the original settler families of the Hicks community. The Cooper School was on adjacent land until closing in 1941. Today, shaded by cedar and live oak trees, the cemetery contains more than 40 marked graves and several that are unmarked. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2006