Lollar Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, far as Duane can relay. Out here in Henderson County, there's a quiet patch of ground called Lollar Cemetery, and like most old cemeteries in Texas, it holds more questions than it answers. The first documented burial at this site was in 1867, the interment of a little boy named John S.

Partin, an infant son of Samuel and Elizabeth Partin. That's where the record begins. A small life, and a small grave, and the ground around it just waiting.

At the time of that first burial, the property belonged to a man named Asa Dalton. The cemetery, though, carries a different name entirely. It is believed the cemetery was named after John Lollar, a neighbor whose property sat just across the Van Zandt County line.

Whether John Lollar himself is buried here, well, that part is unknown. The marker doesn't say, and we don't fill in what the marker won't tell us. What we do know is that families came.

The Fanchers, the Brannans, the Drivers, the Lewises, they all found their way to this ground. Generation after generation, the cemetery served the area families for more than seventy-five years. And then, in 1944, a man named Eli Lollar Fancher was laid to rest here, and that was the last.

That name, Lollar, the same name as the neighbor across the county line, carried all the way to the final burial. Whether by blood, by memory, or by something else the record doesn't say, it wound up on the last stone as surely as it wound up on the gate.

What the marker says

THE FIRST DOCUMENTED BURIAL AT THIS SITE WAS THE 1867 INTERMENT OF SAMUEL AND ELIZABETH PARTIN’S INFANT SON, JOHN S. PARTIN. AT THE TIME OF THE CEMETERY’S INITIAL USE, THE PROPERTY WAS OWNED BY ASA DALTON. IT IS BELIEVED THAT THE CEMETERY WAS NAMED AFTER JOHN LOLLAR, A NEIGHBOR WHOSE PROPERTY WAS SITUATED JUST ACROSS THE VAN ZANDT COUNTY LINE, ALTHOUGH WHETHER HE IS BURIED HERE IS UNKNOWN. ADDITIONAL FAMILIES REPRESENTED IN THE CEMETERY INCLUDE FANCHER, BRANNAN, DRIVER, AND LEWIS. THE CEMETERY WAS USED BY AREA FAMILIES FOR MORE THAN SEVENTY-FIVE YEARS; THE LAST BURIAL, OF ELI LOLLAR FANCHER, OCCURRED IN 1944.