Old Georgetown Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. You're rolling along near the south bank of the South San Gabriel River, and the land you're looking at carries a story that goes back further than most folks care to count. A man named George W.

Glasscock donated a portion of this land in 1848 for the county seat of Williamson County. That's the kind of gesture that shapes a place for generations. But before the county seat, before the committees and the surveys and the careful record-keeping, this ground was already doing the quiet, solemn work that all ground eventually does.

From 1840 to 1902, this site served as a burial plot for the pioneer citizens of the area. Now, here's the part that'll settle into your chest if you let it. Many of those names are unknown.

Many of those graves are unmarked. Whole lives, whole stories, whole families, absorbed into the earth without so much as a stone to say they were here. Time does that.

Neglect does that. And for a long while, it looked like that might be the end of it. But then, in 1963, the Georgetown Historical Survey Committee started something.

They called it a restoration, and they did it with the help of interested people who, and I'm quoting the marker now, did not forget. That phrase is doing a lot of work. Did not forget.

In a place full of unmarked graves and unknown names, the act of remembering is just about the most defiant thing a person can do. That cemetery on the South San Gabriel River is proof that sometimes, the most powerful thing left standing is simply the decision not to walk away.

What the marker says

This site on the south bank of the South San Gabriel River, a portion of the land donated by George W. Glasscock in 1848 for the county seat of Williamson County, was used as a burial plot from 1840 to 1902. Many pioneer citizens lie buried here – many names unknown and graves unmarked. Restoration of “The Old Georgetown Cemetery” was begun in 1963 by the Georgetown Historical Survey Committee with the co-operation of interested people who “did not forget.”