Magnolia Creek Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Magnolia Creek Cemetery in Galveston County. Now settle in, because this one goes back a ways. 1855. Four families roll into this part of Texas, and they don't just pass through.

They plant roots. Willis and Hepsibah Perkins Butler came with her mother, Martha Morgan Perkins. Samuel J. and Rebecca and Coward Perkins followed suit.

Allen and Margaret Perkins Coward. And Needham and Elizabeth Perkins Coward. Four families, tangled together by blood and by name, carving out a life in this corner of the county where a watercourse called Magnolia Creek winds along what would become the edge of their burying ground.

The creek, in fact, forms one of the cemetery's very boundaries. You can almost picture it, that quiet water keeping watch. The descendants of those four families account for most of the souls resting here today, including four veterans of the Civil War.

But the first recorded burial came before any of that war. Samuel J. Perkins, laid to rest in 1859.

The first name in a ledger that would grow long over the years. The first legal record of the place doesn't appear until 1884, when Rebecca Ann Coward Perkins executed a deed to a man named M. R.

Hays. Inside that deed, she reserved four acres for graveyard purposes. Four acres set aside, in writing, so there'd be no mistaking what this ground was for.

Then there's George Washington Butler. During the 1870s and 1880s, he arranged to have several family members interred here. He was a man of some prominence in the community, and when he himself was buried here in 1921, well, that prominence had a way of leavin' an impression.

The marker says it's believed his standing led many local citizens to start calling this place the Butler Cemetery. A name that stuck, the way things do when a community decides to honor someone without making any formal announcement about it. But the official name was always Magnolia Creek.

And in 1982, the Magnolia Creek Cemetery Association reached an agreement with developers of the adjacent land, guaranteeing the preservation of this graveyard for future generations. Four families arrived in 1855. One deed in 1884.

One agreement in 1982. And somewhere in between, a community quietly decided that this ground was worth keeping. It still is.

What the marker says

Named after the watercourse that forms one of its boundaries, this cemetery traces its establishment to the settlement of Willis and Hepsibah Perkins Butler and her mother, Martha Morgan Perkins; Samuel J. and Rebecca and Coward Perkins; Allen and Margaret Perkins Coward; and Needham and Elizabeth Perkins Coward in this area in 1855. The descendants of these four families account for most of the people buried here and include four veterans of the Civil War. The first recorded burial was that of Samuel J. Perkins in 1859. The first legal record of the cemetery appears in a deed executed in 1884 by Rebecca Ann Coward Perkins to M. R. Hays. Provisions within this deed reserved 4 acres here for graveyard purposes. During the 1870s and 1880s George Washington Butler arranged to have several family members interred in the cemetery grounds. Butler's prominence in the community and burial here in 1921 is believed to have eld many local citizens to refer to this graveyard as the Butler Cemetery. An agreement was reached by the Magnolia Creek Cemetery Association and developers of the land adjacent to this graveyard site in 1982 guaranteeing its preservation for future generations.