Mattox Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker says about Mattox Cemetery in Upshur County. Several families made their way from Alabama and Georgia and put down roots in this part of East Texas in the 1850s. They came to stay, and the land remembers them.

According to oral history, slaves were interred around this site, lives and losses that the ground holds even where the records do not. The first burial that was written down was that of Milla Ann Greer Oliver, who died in 1861. That made it official, in the way that records make things official, though the earth had already been keeping count.

In time the place became known as the Old Family Cemetery, which is about as plainspoken a name as Texas ever gave anything, and Texas has given some plainspoken names. Then in 1887, William and Martha Greer deeded the land, this very site, for a church and a cemetery. They put it in writing.

They made it a gift to the future. A cemetery association was formed in 1970, folks organizing to tend what their people had left behind. The names buried here read like a roll call of Upshur County itself.

The Covin family. The Jones family. Loyd, Mattox, Oliver, Williams, Willeford.

More than four hundred burials in all, and among them, veterans who served in conflicts stretching from the Civil War all the way to Vietnam. Men and women, pioneers and soldiers, the enslaved and the free, all gathered into one piece of ground. The marker calls Mattox Cemetery a chronicle of the pioneers of Upshur County, and that is exactly right.

Some chronicles are written in ink. This one is written in names and seasons and red East Texas clay, and it is still being written.

What the marker says

Several families from Alabama and Georgia settled in this area in the 1850s. According to oral history, slaves were interred around this site. The first recorded burial was that of Milla Ann Greer Oliver, who died in 1861. The graveyard became known as the "Old Family Cemetery." William and Martha Greer deeded land including this site for a church and cemetery in 1887. A cemetery association was formed in 1970. Members of the Covin, Jones, Loyd, Mattox, Oliver, Williams, and Willeford families are interred here. Of the more than four hundred burials, several are those of veterans of U. S. and international conflicts from the Civil War to the Vietnam War. The Mattox Cemetery remains a chronicle of the pioneers of Upshur County. (1999)