DUANE
Duane's take
Now, I'm retelling this one straight from the official marker — here's how the story of Merriman Cemetery goes. Out in Eastland County, there's a piece of ground that has been holding onto its dead — and its dignity — for a long, long time. According to local tradition, this site was established as a community graveyard about 1873, the very year Eastland County itself was organized.
One year later, the community of Merriman would be selected as county seat. So from the very beginning, this cemetery was woven into the bones of the place. Now, there are many unmarked gravestones out there — souls who rest without a name above them — but the earliest recorded burial belongs to one Orthosias Scarborough, who passed in 1879.
The first legal record of the whole affair came a good while later, in 1891, when the Taylor Charcoal Company executed a deed conveying two acres for use as a public burial ground to a trustee by the name of M.V. Brewer. Two acres, set aside for the quiet purpose of the dead.
Then came 1917, and with it, oil. Discovered on land owned by John H. McCleskey — who would himself be buried here in 1918 — that oil strike started a boom that rippled out in every direction.
And boom times, well, they don't always respect quiet ground. Here's where it gets interesting. Oil speculators reportedly came calling, dangling a large sum of money in front of members of the Merriman Baptist Church, asking to lease the cemetery grounds for drilling.
Now, the congregation's exact association with the cemetery is uncertain — the marker is careful to tell us that — but what is certain is what they said: no. They turned the offer down. Sat with a large sum of money on the table and said no.
Some ground, they decided, wasn't for lease. The cemetery held on. And in 1938, a woman named Josie Fox Duncan took matters into her own hands.
She deeded seventy-five acres to the trustees of the cemetery specifically to provide an income for its perpetual care. She died in 1940, and her name now belongs to this place in the best possible way. Within those grounds lie early settlers, veterans who served in conflicts stretching all the way from the Civil War to Korea, and the victims of a 1916 to 1917 influenza epidemic — ordinary people caught in an extraordinary misery.
Oil booms come and go. County seats rise and fall. But out there in Eastland County, that cemetery is still standing — two acres deeded in 1891, seventy-five more secured in 1938, and a congregation that once looked a fat check in the eye and said this ground is not for drillin'.
That's the kind of story a place earns.
What the marker says
According to local tradition this site was established as a community graveyard about 1873, the year Eastland County was organized and one year prior to the community of Merriman's selection as county seat. Although there are many unmarked gravestones in the cemetery, the earliest recorded burial is that of Orthosias Scarborough (d. 1879). The first legal record of the Merriman Cemetery occurred in a deed executed by the Taylor Charcoal Company conveying two acres for use as a public burial ground to trustee M.V. Brewer in 1891. Oil discovered in 1917 on land owned by John H. McCleskey (buried here in 1918) started an oil boom that ultimately threatened the sanctity of the Merriman Cemetery. Oil spectulators reportedly offered members of the Merriman Baptist Church a large sum of money to lease the cemetery grounds for drilling. The congregation, although its association with the cemetery is uncertain, turned the offer down. Josie Fox Duncan (d. 1940) deeded 75 acres to trustees of the cemetery in 1938 to provide an income for its perpetual care. The cemetery contains graves of early settlers, veterans of conflicts from the Civil War to Korea, and victims of a 1916-17 influenza epidemic. (1993)