Little Jordan Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Little Jordan Cemetery, up in Fannin County. Now, some stories start with a grand deed or a famous battle. This one starts with two people and a piece of ground they decided to give away.

Sid H. Pierce, born in 1833, and his wife Suzan Brown Pierce, born in 1845, donated this burial ground to their community. Just gave it.

Set it aside as the place where their neighbors, their friends, their people would one day rest. The land sat near the Little Jordan Baptist Church, which held its congregation together from 1850 all the way to 1893. Forty-three years of Sunday mornings, of prayers and hymns and the kind of fellowship that keeps a community knit tight out on the Texas frontier.

Sid Pierce lived until 1914. Suzan lived until 1923. Both of them eventually came to rest not far from the very ground they had once given.

Now, congregations come and go, but gifts tend to outlast the givers. When Little Jordan Baptist Church eventually fell quiet, its former members went on to organize the Ector Baptist Church. And here is where the story takes one of those quiet, deliberate turns that small communities are so good at making.

In 1953, the Ector Baptist Church deeded that same cemetery over to the Savoy Baptist Church. The ground kept passing forward, kept being tended, kept being honored. Then in 1966, the heirs of those original pioneers fenced the area in.

After more than a century, the descendants of the people buried there drew a line around that land and said, this matters, this is kept. That is the story of the Little Jordan Cemetery. A donation, a congregation, a transfer of trust, and a fence built by people who understood what they had inherited.

What the marker says

Sid H. (1833-1914) and Suzan Brown Pierce (1845-1923) donated this burial ground, near the Little Jordan Baptist Church (active 1850-1893). The Ector Baptist Church, organized by former Little Jordan members, deeded the cemetery to Savoy Baptist Church, 1953. Pioneers' heirs fenced the area in 1966.