DUANE
Duane's take
Well, the marker's the one telling this tale, and I'm just the voice it's riding with. Out in Houston County, there's a rocky hill covered in red clay — not the easiest ground for a burial place, not the easiest ground for much of anything. But the settlers who built the Ephesus community didn't have a habit of choosing easy.
They looked at that hill and they said, this is where we'll lay our people to rest. The Milligan Cemetery — you might also see it written as Millican, and both names have been known to show up — may have been established as early as 1840. That's a long time for a piece of ground to hold memory.
The first marked grave that survives dates to 1869, and it belongs to an infant named Ella Wall. Just a child. Just a name and a date, standing at the beginning of a long line of stones.
There was another gravestone, older still — a marker for a female bearing the name Sterlin, or Sterling, depending on how you read the weathering. That stone existed until vandals destroyed it in the late twentieth century. Gone now.
Whatever story it held, gone with it. That's not a small thing. The cemetery sits on the John A.
Goolsby Survey, on land that once belonged to a man named George Washington Marshall. Marshall gave that land to his daughter — Georga, Georga Marshall Goolsby. And then later, a man named Walter Jackson Patton purchased the site and turned around and donated both the burial ground and the adjacent road to the community.
Two acts of generosity, generations apart, keeping this place alive. Now, that red clay hill didn't give an inch without a fight. For many years the community mounded the burial plots by hand — hard labor, season after season, to keep the graves proper and the land from taking back what belonged to the people buried there.
That kind of work doesn't end. Descendants and friends of those buried in Milligan Cemetery still hold regular work days to care for the grounds. They haven't forgotten.
Early settlers. Military veterans. Generations of area residents.
All of them out on that rocky hill in Houston County, waiting quietly while the red clay does what red clay does. Milligan Cemetery has been an important landmark for a long time. Some stories don't need an ending — they just need someone to show up and tend to them.
What the marker says
Settlers in this area established the Ephesus community and used this site as a burial ground. Also known as Millican Cemetery, the Milligan Cemetery may have been established as early as 1840. The first marked grave, however, dates to 1869 and is that of infant Ella Wall. An earlier gravestone for a female with the name Sterlin (or Sterling) on the marker existed until vandals destroyed it in the late 20th century. Located on the John A. Goolsby Survey, the cemetery is on land once owned by George Washington Marshall, who gave it to his daughter Georga (Marshall) Goolsby. Walter Jackson Patton later purchased the site and donated the burial ground and adjacent road to the community. The cemetery’s site on a rocky hill covered in red clay required much labor from the community to maintain the burial plots, which for many years were mounded. Descendants and friends of those buried here now hold regular work days to care for the cemetery. Today, Milligan Cemetery is an important landmark, the final resting place of early settlers, military veterans and generations of area residents. Historic Texas Cemetery – 2005