DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the Old Cedar Community, out in Grayson County. Now, 1848 is where this story begins — and if you know anything about North Texas in 1848, you know that was not a gentle time to be puttin' down roots. Grayson County pioneers came out here and did what pioneers do: they reclaimed land from wilderness.
Raiding Indians and the hardships of frontier life hit fast and hit hard. So hard, in fact, that the very same year those settlers arrived, they were already establishin' a cemetery. Think about that for a moment.
Same year. The community and its burying ground were born together. And the plots were free to any person — no charge, no condition.
Just come, and find your rest here if the frontier takes you. Some four hundred graves eventually filled that ground. Half of them are marked.
Half. The other half are souls the land has quietly kept to itself. Among the ones we do know: one Union veteran of the Civil War, and eighteen Confederate veterans.
Whatever those men thought of each other in life, the Old Cedar cemetery holds them in the same silence. Now, a community can't live on grit and graves alone. It needs learning.
So in 1871, Cedar Academy was organized — a proper school, standing on three acres of land given by a man named D. H. Dumas.
By 1872, enrollment had reached seventy-nine students. And those students weren't just conjugating verbs and ciphering numbers. No, they learned how to make their own ink, and how to split goose-quills for pens.
Split goose-quills. There's a kind of patience in that — taking something wild and making it write. The school later changed its name to Cedar High School, and it kept on until 1937, when it merged with the Tom Bean District.
The same year the school was organized — 1871 — Cedar Methodist Church came together too. The congregation worshipped in a log house on property deeded by J. G.
Vestal and Colonel J. R. Cole.
And if Sunday morning services weren't enough, there was something even bigger waiting about a half mile south of the Church on Whitemound-Cedar Road. Seven acres, donated by Mr. and Mrs. B.
M. Carr, set aside as a camp ground for revivals. Every summer, people would come from miles around, pitch their tents on that land, and hold services under a brush arbor.
Out in the open air, canvas overhead, voices risin' up through the trees. That's a particular kind of faith. A frame church was built in 1891 — a proper structure to hold what had grown from that log house.
And it stood. It stood for the better part of seven decades, through summers and droughts and the full turning of the world. And then, in 1960, a tornado destroyed it.
Just like that. Gone. But here's the thing about a community that's been outrunning hardship since 1848 — it doesn't stay down.
The present structure was dedicated in October of that same year, 1960. The storm took the old church, and before that year was out, they'd already put up the new one. Old Cedar has been burying its dead, teaching its children, and raising its voice in worship for well over a century.
The wilderness pushed back. The frontier pushed back. A tornado pushed back.
And every single time, the community just kept on.
What the marker says
Settled in 1848 by Grayson County pioneers, who reclaimed land from wilderness, raiding Indians and hardships of frontier life soon created need for a cemetery, established the same year. The plots were free to any person. Many noted settlers are buried here, including one Union and 18 Confederate veterans of the Civil War. Of some 400 graves, half are marked. After community was well established, a school-- Cedar Academy -- was organized in 1871. D. H. Dumas gave the land for a 3-acre campus. Enrollment reached 79 in 1872. Here, besides the usual subjects, students learned how to make ink and split goose-quills for pens. Later name was changed to Cedar High School. It merged with the Tom Bean District in 1937. Cedar Methodist Church was organized in 1871. The congregation worshipped in a log house on property deeded by J. G. Vestal and Col. J. R. Cole. A half mile south of Church of Whitemound-Cedar Road, a 7-acre tract donated by Mr. and Mrs. B. M. Carr was used as a camp ground for revivals. Each summer people would come for miles, pitch their tents there, and attend services under a brush arbor. A frame church built in 1891 was destroyed by a tornado in 1960. The present structure was dedicated October, same year.