Nineveh Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker at Nineveh Cemetery has to say, and friend, it's a story worth hearing. Settlement in the community that became known as Nineveh began when some southerners moved west after the close of the Civil War. They were looking for a new start on Texas ground, and they found it out here in Comanche County.

In 1886, a man named Hezekiah Bellamy gave two acres for a school and a cemetery around this very site. Two acres. That's not a grand gesture that costs nothing.

That's a man planting something meant to last. Now, the fellow who named the place, he was a young schoolmaster, a graduate of Harvard University up in Massachusetts. And what did this Harvard-educated schoolmaster out on the Texas frontier reach for when it came time to name the school and the cemetery?

He named them for Nineveh. Ancient Nineveh. In Assyria.

You have to appreciate a man who stares out at the West Texas horizon and thinks of the ancient world. The first person to be interred in that cemetery was Elizabeth McNeely, born in 1804 and laid to rest in 1890. Her granddaughter, Minnie McNeely Dukes, born in 1885 and gone in 1972, became a teacher and a community leader at Nineveh.

And the Dukes family, they didn't just remember this place. They maintained it. Kept the grass back and the memory alive.

The area around the cemetery gradually became known as Old Nineveh, which tells you something about how time folds a place in on itself. There are about twenty-four graves out here, holding members of several pioneer Comanche County families. Folks who moved west, gave land, named schools after ancient empires, and taught children on the frontier.

A Harvard man, a generous neighbor, and a granddaughter who carried it all forward. Not a bad legacy for two acres in Comanche County.

What the marker says

Settlement in the community that became known as Nineveh began as some southerners moved west after the close of the Civil War. In 1886, Hezekiah Bellamy gave two acres for a school and cemetery around this site. A young schoolmaster who was a graduate of Harvard University in Massachusetts named the school and cemetery for Nineveh in ancient Assyria. The first person to be interred here was Elizabeth McNeely (1804-1890). Her granddaughter, Minnie McNeely Dukes (1885-1972), was a teacher and community leader at Ninevah, and the Dukes family has maintained the historic graveyard. The area around the cemetery gradually became known as Old Nineveh. There are about 24 graves in the cemetery, including those of members of several pioneer Comanche County families. (2000)