Morgan Mill Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm passin' it on to you. Out here in Erath County, there's a piece of ground that's been holding the stories of Morgan Mill for a long, long time. The Morgan Mill Cemetery.

And like a lot of sacred places in Texas, it begins with something quiet and heartbreaking. Tradition states that the very first burial here was a young girl, a child traveling west with her family sometime in the eighteen seventies. No marked stone for her.

Just the memory, passed down, that this ground was consecrated first by loss on the road west. That's where it starts. Not with a deed, not with a committee.

With a family, and a grief they carried the rest of the way. The earliest marked gravestone belongs to Amanda Counts, and it dates from 1880. Whatever came before, Amanda's stone is the oldest one still standing to tell you someone was here.

Then comes March of 1883, when a man named Isaac Henderson deeded about three acres to the people of Morgan Mill, making it official. A community burial ground. What began at three acres has grown since to more than six.

The Morgan Mill Cemetery Association came together in 1926, and they set up a permanent fund, the interest from which helps cover maintenance to this day. Smart thinking for the long haul, and the long haul is exactly what this place is built for. Every May, descendants and community members gather for an annual work day and reunion.

The living tending to the ground that holds the rest. Among those interred here, veterans of conflicts stretching from the Civil War all the way to Desert Storm. Early settlers.

Generations of Morgan Mill families. The whole arc of a community, from a child who never made it to her destination, to soldiers who saw things no marker could fully describe. That cemetery out in Erath County isn't just a burial ground.

It's the longest continuous conversation Morgan Mill has ever had.

What the marker says

Tradition states that the first burial here was a young girl who died as her family traveled west in the 1870s. The earliest marked gravestone, for Amanda Counts, dates from 1880. In March 1883, Isaac Henderson deeded about three acres to the people of Morgan Mill for a community burial ground, which has grown since to more than six acres. The Morgan Mill Cemetery Association formed in 1926; interest generated from a permanent fund helps fund maintenance. Descendants and the community gather for an annual work day and reunion in may. Those interred here include veterans of conflicts from the Civil War to Desert Storm, as well as early settlers and generations of Morgan Mill families. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2010