DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker tells it this way, and I'm just the one passing it along. Up in Gonzales County, there's a hill that looks out over a stretch called King Flats, down along the Guadalupe River. And sitting on that hill, quiet as you'd expect a cemetery to be, is the King Cemetery.
It's been there since the 1830s. Let that settle in for a moment — since the 1830s. The land belonged to John Gladden King and his wife, Parmelia.
They settled here in 1830, and John was no ordinary frontiersman — he served as a member of the Council of Government of the DeWitt Colony. This wasn't the edge of nowhere; it was the edge of something being built, one hard year at a time. Now, the earliest marked grave tells a story that'll stop you cold.
William G. Hall — the firstborn of Robert and Mary King Hall — was just two days old when he passed in 1838. Two days.
The frontier didn't soften its edges for anybody, not even for the smallest among us. That little marker on that hill is the oldest named stone in the whole cemetery, and somehow that feels like it carries the full weight of what early Texas life asked of people. But the generations kept coming.
Seven of them, in fact — seven generations of the King family buried on this same ground. You can walk among those stones and read a whole arc of Texas history in the names and dates. And they weren't alone out there.
Veterans of the Texas Revolution are buried here. Veterans of the War of 1812. Men who fought in the Civil War, and others who came home from World War II and the Korean War.
Several Texas Rangers, too, have been laid to rest on this hill overlooking the Guadalupe. The marker calls it a significant chronicle of the frontier settlement of Gonzales County. That's the careful language of history.
But standing on that hill, looking out over King Flats the way John Gladden King and Parmelia must have looked out so many mornings — what you feel is something a little bigger than chronicle. It's continuity. It's the land holding onto the people who held onto it first.
What the marker says
KING CEMETERY LOCATED ON A HILL OVERLOOKING KING FLATS ON THE GUADALUPE RIVER, THIS CEMETERY HAS SERVED THE AREA SINCE THE 1830s. JOHN GLADDEN KING, A MEMBER OF THE COUNCIL OF GOVERNMENT OF THE DEWITT COLONY, AND HIS WIFE, PARMELIA, SETTLED ON THIS LAND IN 1830. THE EARLIEST MARKED GRAVE IS THAT OF WILLIAM G. HALL, THE FIRSTBORN OF ROBERT AND MARY KING HALL, WHO WAS JUST TWO DAYS OLD WHEN HE PASSED IN 1838. SEVEN GENERATIONS OF THE KING FAMILY ARE BURIED HERE. VETERANS FROM THE TEXAS REVOLUTION, WAR OF 1812, CIVIL WAR, WORLD WAR II AND KOREAN WAR HAVE BEEN LAID TO REST IN THIS CEMETERY ALONG WITH SEVERAL TEXAS RANGERS. THE KING CEMETERY IS A SIGNIFICANT CHRONICLE OF THE FRONTIER SETTLEMENT OF GONZALES COUNTY. HISTORIC TEXAS CEMETERY - 2010