Huffman Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna do my best to honor every word. This is the story of Huffman Cemetery, out in Llano County, Texas. Pull up a chair by the fire, because this one spans generations.

It starts, as so many good Texas stories do, with a family heading somewhere new. James Jackson Larremore brought his family to Llano County in 1853. That's early days out here, when this stretch of the Hill Country was still findin' its shape.

His daughter Martha would grow up to meet a man named James S. Huffman, and the two of them married in 1856. They settled in along the Llano River and set about raisin' seven children.

Seven. That's not a family, that's a small congregation. After serving in the Civil War, Huffman came back and purchased three hundred acres in this vicinity.

And when the marker says this vicinity, it means it precisely. That land ran from the western slope of a mountain the locals called Smoothin' Iron, or San Fernando Mountain, westward past Cold Creek. You hear a name like Smoothin' Iron and you know right away you're in a place with its own language, its own character.

The Larremores lived nearby, so you had both families rooted in the same stretch of land, along with other settlers fillin' in around them. And when communities take root, well, they also eventually need a place to lay their people down. The first recorded grave in what would become Huffman Cemetery belongs to Laura Sessom, a granddaughter of the Huffmans, who died in 1884.

That's where the record begins. Quietly. A child's grave.

The cemetery grew across the years, holding more of the family and more of the county's early settlers. Then came 1917, and two losses in the same year. James Huffman and Martha Larremore Huffman, the couple who had built so much of this story together, both died that year.

And that same year, their daughter Maria Jane Simpson took a formal step. She officially dedicated the existing burial plot as Huffman Cemetery. Out of grief, she gave it a name.

A name that would hold. Family members kept on tending that ground all through the twentieth century, and in 1980 they formalized that devotion by forming a cemetery association. The marker notes that the graveyard serves as a resting place for several veterans, and that it chronicles the lives of Llano County's early settlers, along with the contributions of the Huffmans and their descendants.

That's what a piece of ground like this really is, when you think about it. Not just a cemetery. A chronicle.

One that started with a family on the Llano River in 1853 and is still bein' written.

What the marker says

James Jackson Larremore brought his family to Llano County in 1853. Daughter Martha met and married James S. Huffman in 1856, and the couple resided along the Llano River, rearing their seven children. Following service in the Civil War, Huffman purchased 300 acres in this vicinity, spanning from the western slope of Smoothin' Iron, or San Fernando, Mountain westward past Cold Creek. The Larremores lived nearby, and the families and many other settlers in the area soon needed a burial ground. The first recorded grave is that of Huffman granddaughter Laura Sessom (d. 1884). Other family members buried here include James and Martha Larremore Huffman, who both died in 1917. That year, daughter Maria Jane Simpson officially dedicated the existing burial plot as Huffman Cemetery. Family members maintained the burial ground throughout the 20th century, forming a cemetery association in 1980. The graveyard, which serves as a resting place for several veterans, chronicles the lives of Llano County's early settlers and the contributions of the Huffmans and their descendants. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2003