DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll pass it along just the same. Out here in Dallas County, there's a piece of ground that's been holding the memory of this place longer than just about anything else around it. Mount Calvary Cemetery.
And the story goes back further than most folks might expect — all the way to the 1840s, when pioneer settlers were already using this site for burials. Now, the oldest known grave belongs to Amanda L. Houx, born in 1829, gone by 1847.
Eighteen years old. You let that land where it needs to land. For a couple of decades after that, the ground kept its quiet.
Then in 1868, a man named William Huffhines made a decision that would shape this place for generations. He donated a two-acre tract — one that already held those early graves — to Mount Calvary Baptist Church. A frame church building went up right here on this site, and for a time this was a living, breathing congregation with a home.
That building stood until 1885. Then the congregation moved on to Richardson, where it would eventually become the First Baptist Church. But the cemetery stayed.
The land remembered even when the people moved. And the land kept growing. C.
C. Huffhines added more ground to the burial site in 1896. Then C.
B. Chick added still more in 1925, and again in 1935. Piece by piece, acre by acre, this place expanded to hold what this county needed it to hold.
By 1924, a cemetery association had formed to tend to it all. And what they're caring for is nearly 800 graves — souls stretching from the pioneer 1840s right on through the generations that followed. Nearly 800 stories in the ground.
And it started with one settler, one site, and a young woman named Amanda who never made it to twenty.
What the marker says
Pioneer settlers used this site for burials as early as the 1840s. The oldest known grave is that of Amanda L. Houx (1829 - 1847). In 1868 William Huffhines donated a two-acre tract, which included the early graves, to Mount Calvary Baptist Church. A frame church building stood here until 1885, when the congregation moved to Richardson and later became the First Baptist Church. More land was added to the burial ground by C. C. Huffhines in 1896 and C. B. Chick in 1925 and 1935. A cemetery association, formed in 1924, cares for the almost 800 graves here.