Milford Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, as best as Duane can do it justice. Two men, W.R. Hudson and J.M.

Higgins, came out of Cherokee County in East Texas in 1853, early pioneers pushing west to plant roots in new soil. The following year, 1854, they laid off a townsite and gave it a name: Milford. And Milford didn't stay a wide spot in the road for long.

The town developed steadily; homes went up, a school followed, then a post office, churches, the whole architecture of a community deciding it intended to last. There's something quietly remarkable about that. Two men with a vision, and then, before you know it, a town.

Now, the cemetery (nobody kept the paperwork on when it got its start). No specific records exist to document that. But the ground itself keeps its own kind of record.

The oldest grave belongs to E.F. Kimbrough Smith, wife of W.P. Smith, who died in 1855 at the age of twenty-three.

Twenty-three years old, in a frontier settlement barely a year into calling itself a town. That's where the story turns quiet on you. Because she was far from alone.

Nearly two hundred small graves of infants and young children from the nineteenth century lie in that cemetery; two hundred; and each one of them is a testament to just how harsh life on the frontier could be. That number lands differently when you're standing in the Texas heat thinking about it. The cemetery grew over the years, as cemeteries do, becoming the final resting place of generations of early Milford families.

And what a cross-section of American history lies in that ground. Ellis County pioneers are buried there, including Thomas Jefferson Jordan and James McDaniel, both Texas Revolutionary soldiers. Veterans of the Mexican War rest there.

Men who fought in the Civil War. Soldiers from World War I and World War II. And veterans of Vietnam.

All of them, side by side in a cemetery that started without a single written record to its name, in a town that two men from Cherokee County had the audacity to imagine into existence. The marker says the cemetery stands as a reminder of the area's frontier heritage. I'd say it stands as something bigger than that: a ledger of everything a place costs, and everything its people were willing to give.

What the marker says

W.R. Hudson and J.M. Higgins, early pioneers in this area, came from Cherokee County in East Texas to settle here in 1853. They laid off a townsite in 1854 and named it MIlford. The town developed steadily, and soon boasted homes, a school, post office, churches, and other community institutions. Although there are no specific records to document the establishment of the Milford cemetery, the oldest grave is that of E.F. Kimbrough Smith, wife of W.P. Smith, who died at age 23 in 1855. The size of the cemetery has increased over the years, and it is the final resting place of generations of some early Milford families. Ellis County pioneers buried in this historic graveyard include Texas Revolutionary soldiers Thomas Jefferson Jordan and James McDaniel. Nearly two hundred small graves of infants and young children from the 19th century attest to the often harsh living conditions of the frontier. Also interred here, in addition to the Texas Revolutionary soldiers, are veterans of the Mexican War, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and Vietnam. An important element of Milford's history, the cemetery stands as a reminder of the area's frontier heritage.