Old Salem Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker for Old Salem Cemetery has to say, and friends, this one's worth slowing down for. The land you're passing through in Shelby County carries more history than the pines let on, so settle in and listen close. The first settler on this land was a Tennessee man named A.D.

Fountain. He came looking for something, same as everybody who ever pushed into East Texas, and the land that bears his name would end up holding more than crops. Old Salem drew its settlers from Alabama and Georgia, people chasing new opportunities in agriculture and logging, and they came in steady enough that a community took shape right here in the piney woods.

From the eighteen seventies into the eighteen eighties, those settlers would gather under an old white oak tree, and when they lost someone, they buried their families in the nearby Taylor Cemetery. That's where the story of the living and the dead first braided together in this community. Then came eighteen eighty-one, and somebody decided that a log structure would serve as both school and church near this very site.

And with that building came the beginning of Old Salem Cemetery at this location. In eighteen ninety, J.R. and M.A. Hatton sold eight acres of land in the A.D.

Fountain survey to the Salem School Community. Eight acres, changing hands, a community putting down roots in a more formal way. By nineteen twenty-three, the Salem school merged with Tabernacle Common School District, and before long the school district conveyed two acres to the public for use as a cemetery.

The remaining six acres were sold to the Frost Lumber Company, and then in nineteen thirty-eight, that land was gifted back to the cemetery. So what started as a school became a churchyard, what was sold came back as a gift. This ground has a way of returning to its purpose.

Walk through Old Salem Cemetery and you'll notice the tall pine and hardwood trees standing all around it, and the graves laid out in the traditional east-west pattern. The ornamentation on those stones includes urns of flowers, small statues, and gravestone symbols, among them masons and woodmen of the world. And here's something you won't find in many places anymore.

This is one of the few remaining cemeteries filled with mounded dirt graves that are free of grass. No lawn here, just the earth piled up the old way, the way people once honored their dead. Many of those mounds mark graves with no stone, no name visible, because epidemics and infant mortality filled this ground quietly and sometimes without ceremony.

One of the first known burials was an infant of Roe Battles and Emmer Fountain Battles. Think about that for a moment. A child, unnamed on this marker, one of the first laid to rest here, belonging to both the Battles family and the Fountain line that gave this land its very name.

Veterans are buried here too, from the Civil War all the way to the present, soldiers from across more than a century of American conflict, resting together under those pines. Church and community members still maintain this cemetery today, keeping it as a reminder of the early settlers of East Texas and the Old Salem community. That's the thing about a cemetery like this one.

The living keep showing up for the dead, and in doing so, they keep the story alive.

What the marker says

The first settler on this land was Tennessee immigrant A.D. Fountain. The land in which the cemetery sits originated as a school for the rural community of Old Salem. Old Salem's settlers began arriving from Alabama and Georgia looking for new opportunities in agriculture and logging. From the 1870s to the 1880s, settlers began to congregate under an old white oak tree and buried their families in the nearby Taylor Cemetery. By 1881, a log structure used as a school and church was built near this site and the Old Salem Cemetery at this location was in use. In 1890, J.R. and M.A. Hatton sold eight acres of land in the A.D. Fountain survey to the Salem School Community. By 1923, the Salem school merged with Tabernacle Common School District and soon the school district conveyed two acres to the public for use as a cemetery. The remaining six acres, sold to the Frost Lumber Company, was gifted in 1938 to the cemetery. The cemetery is surrounded by tall pine and hardwood trees with graves laid out in the traditional east-west pattern. Grave ornamentation includes urns of flowers, small statues and gravestone symbols, including masons and woodmen of the world. This burial ground is also one of the few remaining cemeteries filled with mounded dirt graves that are free of grass. Many unmarked graves fill the cemetery as a result of epidemics and infant mortality. One of the first known burials was an infant of Roe Battles and Emmer Fountain Battles. Many veterans from the Civil War to the present are buried here. Church and community members maintain this historic cemetery as a reminder of early settlers in East Texas and the Old Salem Community.