Mohler Cemetery

Duane's take

The way the marker tells it, here's what this piece of Texas ground holds. Out here in Mills County, a cemetery doesn't just hold the dead. It holds the whole story of a place.

And the Mohler Cemetery, well, it holds quite a story. Ambrose Bull bought part of the Moses Hughes tract back in November of 1859, and that made him one of the first settlers in what folks came to call the Bulls Springs community. He put down roots in this land before the soil had much of a memory at all.

Then came the graves. The first person thought to be buried here was a man named George Washington Joy, a veteran of the War of 1812, sometime in the 1870s. Think about that for a moment.

A man who fought in the War of 1812 found his final rest out here on this Texas ground in the 1870s. The years a person carries can be something. Eighty-three graves have been surveyed in this cemetery.

Of those, twenty-seven are unknown. Names lost, stones gone or never there to begin with. Most of the graves date from the 1870s through the 1920s, the whole arc of an early Mills County settlement written in stone and earth.

In 1899, the land was placed in trust. County Judge G. H.

Dalton received it, with Trustees C. B. Mohler, S.

A. Bull, and D. S.

Kelley putting it in his hands. That's how this community chose to protect what it had built and who it had lost. Now, if you walk through this cemetery, you'll find it's not a plain or simple place.

There's concrete curbing, raised brick crypts, iron fencing. Shell grave decorations catch the light in their quiet way. Markers of sandstone, granite, and limestone rise up from the ground in all their variety.

And then there are the tombstones with poems on them. Not poems cut by a stonecutter following orders, but poems written by family members, carved into the markers of the people they loved. That detail, right there, is the one that stays with you.

Eighty-three graves. Twenty-seven unnamed. And some of those that do have names, they have verses too, words somebody sat down and chose with grief and love and care.

The Mohler Cemetery isn't just a burial ground. The marker calls it what it truly is: a chronicle of this early Mills County settlement. And chronicles, even the ones carved in limestone, have a way of lasting.

What the marker says

Ambrose Bull bought part of the Moses Hughes tract in Nov. 1859 and was among the first settlers in the Bulls Springs community. War of 1812 veteran George Washington Joy is thought to be the first person buried here in the 1870s. Of 83 surveyed graves, 27 are unknown, and most date from the 1870s to 1920s. In 1899, land was placed in trust with County Judge G. H. Dalton by Trustees C. B. Mohler, S. A. Bull and D. S. Kelley. Cemetery features include concrete curbing, raised brick crypts, iron fencing, shell grave decorations, and sandstone, granite and limestone markers. Many tombstones are engraved with poems written by family members. The cemetery is a chronicle of this early mills county settlement.