Jones Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Back in 1879, a preacher named Reverend Irvin Jones made a decision that would outlast him by more than a century. He deeded two acres of his homestead land to the Utopia Methodist Church, set aside for use as a cemetery.

Two acres. Sounds modest, until you start counting the stories buried there. Reverend Jones himself was born in 1825 and lived until 1903, so he had a good long while to watch that ground fill up with neighbors and history.

But the first person laid to rest at the center of those two acres was someone close to home. His wife, Elizabeth, was buried right there, at the heart of the site, upon her death in 1886. Right in the middle of the land her husband had given away to God and community.

There's something quietly powerful about that. Early settlers of the Taylor and Utopia communities found their final rest in Jones Cemetery, and so did several Civil War veterans, men who had seen the country split and stitch itself back together. Then there's Ben Highsmith, a Mexican War veteran and Texas Ranger, which is a combination that tells you something about the kind of life a man could pack into one lifetime out here.

And Reverend O.A. Fisher, an early area Methodist minister, rests here too, not far from the man who first set the land aside for the church he served. But the name that might stop you cold belongs to a schoolteacher.

George Barker, a teacher credited with giving Utopia its name, is buried in Jones Cemetery. The town, the name, the whole notion of it, and the man connected to that name is right there in the ground Reverend Jones deeded out in 1879. Two acres.

A preacher, his wife at the center, rangers and reverends and the man who named the place. That's not just a cemetery. That's a whole community deciding, together, where it stands.

What the marker says

In 1879, the Rev. Irvin Jones (1825-1903) deeded two acres of land on his homestead to the Utopia Methodist Church for use as a cemetery. His wife, Elizabeth, had been buried in the center of the two-acre site upon her death in 1886. Early settlers of the Taylor and Utopia communities are buried in the Jones Cemetery, as are several Civil War veterans. Others interred here include Mexican War veteran and Texas Ranger Ben Highsmith and the Rev. O.A. Fisher, an early area Methodist minister. George Barker, a teacher credited with giving "Utopia" its name, is also buried here. (1985)