Old North Church Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. The Old North Church Cemetery, Nacogdoches County — and friend, this ground has been holding stories longer than most folks care to reckon with. According to legend, the very first burial here was a young girl.

Her family was traveling through the area, westward bound, when she died. They laid her to rest right here and kept on going. No name on the marker.

Just a legend, and a quiet kind of heartbreak. Oral tradition adds another layer — suggesting that a man named William Whitaker was already interred in a brick vault on this site before Richard Sparks ever formally set the land aside as a community graveyard. That happened in 1838.

Same year, the spring of 1838, the Union Baptist Church was organized here — the congregation that would eventually be known as the Old North Church. Now, whatever came first, the church or the graveyard, they grew up together. The oldest marked grave belongs to Saletha Easter Whitaker, who died in 1845.

Then, in 1892, Dr. John M. Sparks and his wife formally deeded ten acres to the Union church — that included the original five acres Richard Sparks had first set aside.

So the land that began as a gesture became a legal promise, and the cemetery kept growing. Here's something the marker doesn't let you look past: the cemetery was historically divided into two sections. The east side was used for the burials of local slaves, many of whom were members of that same church.

Over time, that section became a separate cemetery entirely. Two communities, one faith, a line drawn in the earth. The burials here span wars — veterans of the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Texas Revolution all rest in this ground.

And then there's the Civil War, which left its mark on both sides of the conflict, almost literally. Records indicate that some forty-seven Confederate soldiers are buried in the southern portion of the cemetery. And twenty-one Union soldiers are interred in unmarked graves — most of them victims of an epidemic of dysentery during the Reconstruction era.

Twenty-one men, no markers. Gone in a wave of sickness, far from wherever home was. The Old North Church Cemetery Association was organized in 1976, and by 1998, when this marker was placed, the graveyard held more than nine hundred and fifty graves and was still being used by descendants of those early church members.

Nine hundred and fifty graves, one young girl nobody remembers the name of, and a brick vault that was already there before the land was even given over. The marker calls this place a chronicle of the early days of Nacogdoches County. I'd say that's about right.

Some chronicles are written in ink. This one's written in stone — and in the spaces where the stones ought to be.

What the marker says

According to legend, the first burial in this cemetery was that of a young girl whose family, traveling through the area when she died, buried her here before continuing their westward journey. Oral tradition also suggests that William Whitaker was already interred in a brick vault by the time Richard Sparks set aside land on this site for use as a community graveyard in 1838. The Union Baptist Church (later the Old North Church) was organized in the spring of that year. The oldest marked grave is that of Saletha Easter Whitaker (d. 1845). Dr. John M. Sparks and his wife formally deeded ten acres including the original five acres set aside by Richard Sparks to the Union church in 1892. The cemetery historically was divided into two sections. The east side was used for the burials of local slaves, many of whom were members of the church, and eventually became a separate cemetery. Other burials of interest include those of veterans of the American Revolution, the War of 1812, and the Texas Revolution. Records indicate that some forty-seven Confederate Civil War soldiers are buried in the southern portion of the cemetery, and twenty-one Union soldiers are interred in unmarked graves. Most of the Union veterans were victims of an epidemic of dysentery during the Reconstruction era. The Old North Church Cemetery Association was organized in 1976. With more than 950 graves in 1998, the graveyard continues to be used by descendants of early church members. The burial ground is a chronicle of the early days of Nacogdoches County. (1998)