Jonah Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Back in 1902, five men got together with a purpose. J.

M. Barrington, W. S.

McMakins, C. Brady, A. J.

McDonald, and R. H. Northcutt, community leaders out in the Jonah area of Williamson County, pooled their resources and purchased two acres near the San Gabriel River.

Not for a church, not for a school. For a cemetery. And here's the thing that tells you everything you need to know about the kind of community this was: burials were free to area residents.

Free. You didn't have to have money to be remembered here. You just had to belong.

The earliest marked grave is that of George N. Northcutt. Walk a little further and you'll find the graves of Confederate veterans Isiah S.

Hicks and M. G. Walton, men whose stories the ground now keeps.

But maybe the most quietly astonishing section of this cemetery belongs to two sisters. Twin sisters, Sarah E. Yoes Robbins and Margaret Yoes Barrington, both laid to rest here, and buried nearby are many of their twenty-two children.

Twenty-two. Between two women. That is a family that put down roots so deep they practically became the soil.

Jonah was once a thriving rural community. Stores, neighbors, life. Most of that is gone now.

But the cemetery remains, still serving the area, still accepting the ones who come home to rest near the San Gabriel River. Sometimes the last thing standing is the place where a community kept its promises.

What the marker says

Jonah Cemetery was established in 1902 when community leaders J. M. Barrington, W. S. McMakins, C. Brady, A. J. McDonald, and R. H. Northcutt purchased two acres near the San Gabriel River to be used as a cemetery. Burials were free to area residents. The earliest marked grave is that of George N. Northcutt. Other graves of interest are those of Confederate veterans Isiah S. Hicks and M. G. Walton. Twin sisters Sarah E. (Yoes) Robbins and Margaret (Yoes) Barrington are interred here near many of their 22 children. One of the last physical remnants of a once-thriving rural community, the Jonah Cemetery continues to serve the area. (1998)