Mt. Carmel Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, there are cemeteries, and then there are cemeteries. Mt.

Carmel, down about nine-tenths of a mile south of where you're sitting right now, is the second kind. The kind with a story that starts long before most folks in Hunt County ever put down roots. It goes back to a man named William J.

Williams, though folks around here knew him as Uncle Billy. Born in 1826, Uncle Billy would go on to see 1918, and that is a life that spans a whole lot of Texas history. His family had settled this area back in 1844, so they were not newcomers, not by any measure.

They were the ones who were already here when the newcomers arrived. In 1852, Uncle Billy set aside three and a half acres of land for a cemetery. And here is where the story gets tender.

He set it aside for the burial of his two-year-old niece, Angelina Williams. Two years old. You take a moment with that.

Out of grief, out of love, Uncle Billy carved a piece of the earth and said, this ground is for keeping. The oldest gravestones on that property belong to his parents, Elizabeth, born in 1789 and gone in 1861, and George Williams, born in 1786 and gone in 1863. They rest in the ground their son set aside, which feels like the kind of thing that doesn't happen by accident.

For years the place was simply called Williams Cemetery, which made all the sense in the world. But then 1883 rolled around, and a Methodist church was built nearby, and that church carried the name Mt. Carmel.

The cemetery took on that name too, and it has worn it ever since. By 1891, an open chapel had been added to the property. Then in 1920, another chapel was erected, and that one still stands today.

Still standing. From three and a half acres set aside in sorrow for a little girl, the site has grown to thirty-seven and a half acres. About ten thousand graves, maintained by the Mt.

Carmel Cemetery Association. Ten thousand stories, all of them rooted in the one Uncle Billy started when he couldn't bear to let go.

What the marker says

(0.9 miles south) William J. "Uncle Billy" Williams (1826-1918), whose family settled this area in 1844, set aside 3.5 acres of this cemetery in 1852 for burial of his two-year-old niece, Angelina Williams. Oldest gravestones are those of his parents, Elizabeth (1789-1861) and George Williams (1786-1863). First called Williams Cemetery, it became known as Mt. Carmel after a Methodist church by that name was built nearby in 1883. An open chapel was added to the property in 1891; another erected in 1920 still stands. Maintained by Mt. Carmel Cemetery Association, the site has grown to 37.6 acres and contains about 10,000 graves. (1975)