Hoggard-Reynolds Cemetery

Duane's take

The official marker tells this one, and I'm just the voice carryin' it down the road. Out here in Parker County, there's a piece of ground that started with an act of grace; or so the story goes. Sarah Hoggard was a pioneer farmer, a Confederate widow, and by all accounts a woman who made decisions that outlasted her.

According to oral history, when an African American child died while traveling through the area with his family after the Civil War, it was Sarah who gave a plot of her land so that child could be laid to rest. Think on that for a moment. A Confederate widow, opening her earth to a stranger's child.

The marker doesn't dress it up or explain it. It just says she did it. Though there may be earlier graves on that site, the first marked burial belongs to Francis Reynolds, who died in 1865.

That name (Reynolds) is one worth remembering, because it's about to become very important to this story. Sarah and James Hoggard had a daughter named Matilda. Matilda married a man named Benjamin Reynolds, whose father operated the first cotton gin and grist mill in the area.

Now the Hoggard name and the Reynolds name were bound together not just by marriage, but by the ground itself. Generation by generation, the Reynolds family name grew as prominent among those graves as the Hoggards' own. By 1899, the place had a name in the legal record: the Hoggard Graveyard, set aside in a deed to the Hoggard family land.

That's what it was called for the better part of a century. Then in 1984, a Reynolds descendant deeded additional land to the cemetery, and the name was formally updated to reflect what had quietly been true for a long time: Hoggard-Reynolds Cemetery. The marker calls it a chronicle of area pioneers.

And that's exactly right. It began with one widow's decision and one child's grave, and it grew into something that holds the whole weight of a community's history. The land remembers, even when the rest of us forget.

What the marker says

According to oral history, pioneer farmer and Confederate widow Sarah Hoggard gave a plot of her land for the burial of an African American child who died while traveling through the area with his family after the Civil War. Though there may be earlier graves, the first marked burial on this site if that of Francis Reynolds, who died in 1865. Sarah and James Hoggard's daughter Matilda married Benjamin Reynolds, whose father operated the first cotton gin and grist mill in the area, and his family name became as prominent among the graves as that of the Hoggards. In 1899 the "Hoggard Graveyard" was set aside in a deed to the Hoggard family land. Reynolds was formally added to the cemetery name in 1984 after a Reynold's descendant deeded additional land. The cemetery is a chronicle of area pioneers. (2000)