Hill Crest Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the marker tells it, and here's how I'm passin' it along to you. You're rolling through Gillespie County now, and there's a piece of ground out here called Hill Crest Cemetery that holds more history than most folks slow down long enough to notice. This graveyard is closely tied to the Morris Ranch, and the Morris Ranch was no ordinary spread.

It was an early international race horse breeding and training facility, right here in Gillespie County. International. Let that settle in a moment.

Horses bred and trained here were known beyond any state line, beyond any border. This corner of Texas had that kind of reach. Now the ranch belonged to a man named Francis Morris.

His nephew Charles took on the work of running the place, serving as its first general manager, and Charles didn't go it alone. His brothers and sisters were right there beside him, working that land and building something. Their father, William, died in 1894, and when you walk Hill Crest Cemetery today, it's William's grave that bears the earliest legible tombstone on the grounds.

Earliest legible one, mind you. The marker is careful to say there may be earlier burials out there, unmarked, names and stories the earth has simply kept for itself. That's the quiet weight a place like this carries.

The cemetery holds the graves of many Morris family descendants and other settlers of the Morris Ranch community, ordinary people and extraordinary ones, all gathered on the same hill. A ranch that touched the world, and a graveyard that remembers who made it possible.

What the marker says

This graveyard is closely associated with the Morris Ranch, an early international race horse breeding and training facility in Gillespie county. Charles Morris, whose Uncle Francis owned the ranch, served as its first general manager and was assisted by his brothers and sisters. Their father, william, died in 1894, and his grave bears the earliest legible tombstone here, although there may be earlier unmarked burial sites. The cemetery contains the graves of many Morris family descendants and other settlers of the Morris Ranch community.