Hutto Cemetery

Duane's take

The way I heard it, this comes straight from the official marker, let me tell it to you right. Out here in Williamson County, there's a piece of ground that's been holding stories longer than most folks can remember. The place we call Hutto Cemetery today didn't start out with that name.

Back in the late 1880s, it went by Elmwood Cemetery, and it was a woman named T.A. Boatright who first planted roots there in the most sorrowful way you can imagine. She buried a family child here, and her husband, E.B., too.

Now, T.A. Boatright wasn't the kind of woman to let grief just sit. In 1889, she bought the land itself from C.P. and Julia Crews.

When she did, she found she wasn't alone in what she'd acquired. Several graves already existed on that property, and a good many of them had no markers at all. Names lost to time before the ink ever had a chance to dry.

The earliest marked grave the record can point to is that of Joseph Metcalfe, who died in 1887. Over the years, the property passed from the Boatrights to the Haygoods. And then, in 1950, a woman named Birdie Haygood Badger sold it to a newly formed organization called the Hutto Cemetery Association.

That's when the name changed, tying the ground formally to the community it had been serving all along. But here's what makes this place something more than just a plot of land with headstones. Inside those boundaries, records show two lots once set aside for paupers, and one lot connected to a Swedish church that, over time, evolved into Hutto's First Methodist Church.

You walk through here and you're walking through the whole sweep of a community's life. Grave markers bearing text that tells you a settler came from another state, another country. Markers for men who belonged to fraternal organizations, or who answered a military call as far back as the Civil War.

And markers, some of the quietest ones, for children whose brief lives are counted as part of this history too. That's the thing about a cemetery like this one. The unmarked graves whisper what the marked ones say out loud.

Hutto's story didn't begin in a town hall or a courthouse. A good part of it began right here, in the ground.

What the marker says

T.A. Boatright buried a family child and her husband, E.B., here in the late 1880s when the site was known as Elmwood Cemetery. In 1889, she bought land here from C.P. and Julia Crews. Several graves already existed in addition to those of her family, and many were unmarked. Today, the earliest marked grave is that of Joseph Metcalfe (d. 1887). Over time, the property exchanged hands from the Boatrights to the Haygoods. Birdie Haygood Badger sold the property in 1950 to the newly formed Hutto Cemetery Association, and the cemetery name changed to reflect its association to the community. Records indicate that within the cemetery's bounds are two lots once reserved for paupers, as well as one lot associated with the Swedish church that evolved into Hutto's First Methodist Church. The community's history is evident in the cemetery, with text on grave markers signifying settlers who came from other states or countries, area residents who belonged to fraternal organizations or who served in the military as early as the Civil War, and children whose brief lives also contributed to the local history. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2004