Oak Cliff Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Oak Cliff Cemetery, out there in Dallas County. Now, every good Texas story starts somewhere back before Texas was even Texas — and this one is no different. A Kentucky man named William S.

Beaty made his way to the Republic of Texas in those early, uncertain days, and the Republic rewarded him the way it rewarded ambitious men back then: with land. Six hundred and forty acres of it. That is a serious piece of ground.

His brother Josiah had already beaten him to it, arriving in 1836 and putting down roots along the Trinity River, in what we now call Dallas County. The two of them settled in together, and a little community grew up around their property. Folks called that place Hord's Ridge — named, the marker tells us, for Judge William Hord, who is himself buried in the very cemetery we're about to talk about.

The settlement wouldn't take the name Oak Cliff until 1887, but that name has stuck ever since. Here is where the story gets quietly remarkable. In 1846, William Beaty sat down and deeded ten acres of his land for a public burial ground.

That deed did something unusual — it reached back in time, in a way, because William noted in the writing of it that his brother Josiah had already been interred on that very site. Josiah Beaty, who arrived in 1836, who helped build that settlement from raw riverbank, was already resting in ground that was only now, officially, becoming a cemetery. And that deed carried a principle worth saying out loud.

William Beaty specified that the cemetery should be subject to no one sect — that it should forever remain open to all. Forever. That is a word men don't always mean when they write it down.

Whether this one held, well, the cemetery is still there. The oldest marked grave belongs to Martha A. Wright, dated 1844 — two full years before William even signed that deed over.

The land was already doing its quiet work before the paperwork caught up. The people who came to rest in Oak Cliff Cemetery read like a roll call of early Dallas County. Judge William Hord, the man the ridge was named for.

Two former Dallas mayors — George Sergeant and George Sprague — lying out there in the same ground. And one more name that carries some weight in Texas: Colonel William Rogers Houston, a son of General Sam Houston himself. Oak Cliff Cemetery, the marker says, remains a valuable and historic link to the early settlement of Dallas.

That's the official word. The less official word is this: some places hold a community's memory the way old roots hold riverbank soil — quietly, firmly, and for longer than anyone planned.

What the marker says

Kentucky native William S. Beaty came to Texas during its early days as a Republic and received a grant of 640 acres of land. He and his brother, Josiah, who arrived in 1836, settled along the Trinity River in what is now Dallas County. The settlement that developed around their property first was called Hord's Ridge and became known as Oak Cliff in 1887. In 1846, William Beaty deeded 10 acres of his land for a public burial ground and indicated in the deed that his brother, Josiah, already had been interred on the site. The deed also specified that the cemetery should be subject to no one sect but should forever remain open to all. The oldest marked grave in the cemetery, that of Martha A. Wright, is dated 1844. Many prominent Dallas County pioneers and citizens have been buried here, including Judge William Hord, for whom Hord's Ridge was named. Two former Dallas mayors, George Sergeant and George Sprague, and a son of Gen. Sam Houston, Col. William Rogers Houston, are buried here. Oak Cliff Cemetery remains a valuable and historic link to the early settlement of Dallas.