Murphy Family Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say, and this one's worth slowing down for. Out in Collin County, there's a quiet stretch of ground tucked among cedar trees that's been holding the stories of a family, and a whole community, for well over a hundred years. They call it the Murphy Family Cemetery.

Some folks know it as the William Andrew Murphy Cemetery. Others still call it the Mouldon Cemetery. But however you say the name, the roots run deep, all the way back to one man's grief.

William A. Murphy was born in 1816, and he lived a long life, all the way to 1909. In 1872, when his sister Susan Emberton died, William set aside a piece of his own land so she'd have a proper resting place.

A private family cemetery, right there on the property. That's how it began. Now William Murphy was not a man who did things halfway.

He laid down a decree, the kind of rule that gets carved into a family's memory same as a name gets carved into stone. His sons and their families would be buried on the north side of the cemetery. His daughters and their families on the south.

North and south, just like that, order kept even in eternity. Those daughters of William and Dorothy Murphy, they planted cedar trees on those grounds. The very same cedars you'd find standing there today, if you were to pull off the road and walk up quiet.

Think about that. Trees planted by hands long gone, still shading the earth. By the late 1800s, most of the Murphy family had moved west, the way Texas families do, always chasing the horizon.

But the cemetery didn't close up behind them. Other members of the community found their rest there too, the grounds becoming something a little bigger than one family's plot, a community's shared ground. And it kept receiving the departed for a good long while.

The last burial was Ruby Sorrells, in 1988. Over a century after William Murphy first set aside that land for his sister. Today the cemetery sits peacefully among those cedars.

That's the word the marker uses, peacefully, and I think they earned the right to say it. A place that's held that much, for that long, under trees that old, has earned its peace.

What the marker says

The Murphy Family Cemetery has been identified with the Murphy Community since William A. Murphy (1816-1909) set aside land for a private family cemetery in 1872 when his sister, Susan Emberton, died. The cemetery is also known as the William Andrew Murphy Cemetery or Mouldon Cemetery. William decreed that his sons and their families be buried on the north side of the cemetery, while his daughters and their families be buried on the south. By the late 1800s, most of the Murphy family moved west and other community members were interred on the grounds. The last burial was Ruby Sorrells in 1988. Today the cemetery sits peacefully among the cedars first planted by the daughters of William and Dorothy Murphy. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2015