Hopewell Cemetery

Duane's take

The way the marker tells it, here's the story of Hopewell Cemetery in Navarro County. Now settle in, because this one goes back further than most folks remember to look. The land itself sits on the 1846 Wilson Reed survey, and people were already laying their dead to rest here by the 1860s.

That's a long time for a piece of ground to hold a community's grief. Hopewell Baptist Church came along in 1866, founded right there in that part of Texas, and two years after that the congregation put up an actual church building on the adjoining property. So you had the living worshipping beside the resting, the way it often went in those days.

The earliest marked grave belongs to an infant, John W. Pritchard, who died in 1870. And there's another stone bearing that same year, 1870, for William C.

Fouty, born in 1866, also interred in that same ground. Two stones, same year, both of them children. You don't need to editorialize on that.

The years say enough. Now in 1875, a man named Joshua Parmer Cox, born in 1824, purchased property from J. H.

Manning, and that property included the cemetery site. Cox, whose own grave is located right there among the others, donated the land beside the church for use as a public burial ground. He gave it away.

Put it in the commons, so to speak. Then the railroad came extending south from Corsicana, and when it did, the town of Navarro got laid out about a mile to the north. Hopewell Baptist Church picked up and moved there in 1907.

The town grew into a thriving community, built on cattle and farming, and then the oil boom of the 1920s rolled through and changed the equation entirely, the way oil booms tend to do. Meanwhile, the cemetery stayed put. Families had long kept up the tradition of coming out on annual workdays, bringing picnic lunches, tending the graves together.

Community labor, community memory. The Hopewell Cemetery Association was organized in 1919, giving that tradition a more formal home. Then in 1940 the cemetery was enlarged, two adjacent acres purchased from Hugh and Irene Wilson.

Today there are five hundred marked graves in that ground, including those of veterans of several wars. Five hundred stories, all of them started somewhere else and ended here, on a survey that dates to 1846. That's Hopewell Cemetery.

Still holding ground.

What the marker says

Burials at this site on the 1846 Wilson Reed survey date from the 1860s. Hopewell Baptist Church, founded in 1866, erected a church building on adjoining property two years later. The earliest marked grave is that of an infant, John W. Pritchard, who died in 1870. Another gravestone bearing the date 1870 is that of William C. Fouty (1866-1870), is also interred here. In 1875 Joshua Parmer Cox (1824-1881) purchased from J. H. Manning property which included the cemetery site. Cox, whose grave is located here, donated the land beside the church for use as a public burial ground. When the railroad extended south from Corsicana, the town of Navarro (1 mi. N) was laid out and Hopewell Baptist Church moved there in 1907. Navarro became a thriving community, dependent on cattle and farming until the oil boom of the 1920s. The Hopewell Cemetery Association was organized in 1919. Before that time, families traditionally brought picnic lunches and gathered to tend the graveyard on annual workdays. In 1940 the cemetery was enlarged when two adjacent acres were purchased from Hugh and Irene Wilson. The 500 marked graves include those eof veterans of several wars.