Mayberry Park Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm passing it along to you. Out here in Bell County, there's a cemetery that keeps its secrets better than most. Mayberry Park Cemetery, they call it now.

But for a long time, it didn't have any name at all. No name, just graves. Some marked with plain stones.

Some not marked at all. That's a particular kind of quiet, friends. The kind that makes you slow down.

The only legible headstone still standing belongs to a man named James Moses Cowan, born 1834, died 1888. One stone, still readable, still holding its ground after all these years. Folks believe his grave is one of somewhere between twelve and twenty burials out there, though the others have mostly gone silent, their markers either plain or gone entirely.

Local tradition holds that members of the pioneer O.M. Hood family were laid to rest in this ground too, though the earth isn't saying much on that count either. For generations, the cemetery carried no specific name.

Not a single one. It wasn't until the middle of the twentieth century that people started calling it Mayberry Park Cemetery. A name arriving late, like a headstone finally put in place.

Then in 1942, the land became part of Fort Hood, folded into something much larger than itself. One legible stone, one name we can still read, twelve to twenty souls in the ground. James Moses Cowan, 1834 to 1888.

Somebody's pioneer. Somebody's family. Still there.

What the marker says

The only remaining legible headstone in this graveyard reveals that the cemetery dates to the late 19th century. The grave of James Moses Cowan (1834-1888) is believed to be one of 12-20 burials. Other graves are marked with plain stones or remain unadorned. According to local tradition, members of the pioneer O.M. Hood family were interred in the cemetery. There was no specific name associated with the cemetery until the mid-20th century, when it became known as Mayberry Park Cemetery. The land became a part of Fort Hood in 1942. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986