Moore's Springs Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker at Moore's Springs Cemetery has to say, out here in Lamar County. Now settle in, because this one stretches back a good long ways. It starts with a man named Levin Vinson Moore, born in 1809, who in 1836 packed up his family and pointed them southwest, out of Tennessee and into this part of Texas.

They found their ground near a natural spring, put down roots, and started building a farmstead. And word must have traveled, because soon eleven other families came rolling in from the southern United States, one by one, until a little community had taken shape around that spring. Now, that is the kind of thing that happens quietly, almost before anyone notices.

Folks arrive, folks stay, folks plant fields and raise children. And then, inevitably, folks are buried. The earliest marked graves in this cemetery date to 1873, right there on the Moore farm, which is where the cemetery got its start.

Moore family members and many of their neighbors came to rest in that ground over the years. But here is the detail that gives the whole story a kind of formal weight. It was not until 1895 that the cemetery was officially recorded in county deed records.

That happened because Robert H. Moore, a son of L. V.

Moore himself, donated a one-acre tract of land specifically for burial purposes. Levin Vinson Moore had come to Texas in 1836 and died in 1899, and before he was gone, his own son had made sure that ground would be kept for the people who needed it. Some legacies are built out of land and deed records, and this is one of them.

What the marker says

Levin Vinson Moore (1809-1899) brought his family to this area from Tennessee in 1836. They established a farmstead near a natural spring, and soon were joined by eleven other families from the southern United States. The earliest marked graves in this cemetery, which started on the Moore farm, date to 1873. Moore family members, as well as many of their neighbors, are interred in the historic graveyard. It was officially recorded in county deed records in 1895 after Robert H. Moore, a son of L. V. Moore, donated a 1-acre tract of land for burial purposes.