Laws Chapel Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, the way I understand it to go. You know how some places start out holding just one family's grief, and end up holding a whole community's history? Laws Chapel Cemetery in Cass County is exactly that kind of place.

It began, as so many things do out here, with a loss. Henry G. Law was born in 1813, son of George and Martha McDonald Law, and the family had just made the long move from Georgia when Henry died in 1854.

Shortly after they arrived. That's the kind of thing that stops a family cold, and the ground where they laid him down became the first of what would grow into something much larger. A family cemetery, holding one name, one grief, one Georgia family finding themselves rooted to Texas soil in the hardest possible way.

But time has a way of expanding what sorrow starts. The Law family didn't disappear from this story. Another son, Richard R.

Law, stepped forward in 1869 and donated six acres to what would be known as the Laws Chapel Church and Cemetery. Six acres, a gift, a community taking shape around a name already carved in that ground. Then came 1887, and with it the establishment of Piney Grove Baptist Church nearby.

That congregation found a home here too, sharing the graveyard, weaving another thread into what was already becoming a chronicle rather than just a cemetery. By 1941 the grounds had expanded by another one and a half acres, because communities grow, and so do the stories they need to keep. Today that cemetery in Cass County is still serving the living by keeping faith with the dead, pioneers, veterans, and families all gathered together in the same six-plus-one-and-a-half acres that started with one family stepping off the road from Georgia and never quite leaving.

What the marker says

Originally a family cemetery, this burial ground began upon the death of Henry G. Law (1813-1854), son of George and Martha McDonald Law, who died shortly after the family moved here from Georgia. The site eventually became a community cemetery and another son, Richard R. Law, donated 6 acres to the Laws Chapel Church and Cemetery in 1869. The graveyard later was shared with nearby Piney Grove Baptist Church after it was established in 1887. Expanded by 1.5 acres in 1941, the cemetery continues to serve the community and remains a chronicle of the pioneers, veterans, and families of Cass County.