Peaster Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Peaster Cemetery, out in Parker County. Now, every good Texas town starts somewhere, and this one starts with a man a long way from home. Henry H.

Peaster came out of South Carolina, and in 1870 he purchased 160 acres right here. Just a man and his land, out on the Texas prairie. For a while, that's all it was.

But Henry had plans; because sometime in the late 1880s, he started selling off town lots, and just like that, a village took shape and carried his name forward. Peaster, Texas. Born from a sale of land, parcel by parcel.

Now before the town lots were even all spoken for, this ground was already being asked to hold something more solemn. The earliest recorded burial here is that of Mary D. Hunt, in 1886.

The village was barely finding its footing, and already there was someone to remember. Then in 1893, Henry Peaster himself donated two acres of this land specifically for cemetery purposes. A man who'd built a town decided the town needed a proper place for its dead, and he gave it one.

That decision is still paying out. The cemetery is active to this day, and the names within it tell the whole arc of this community. Early settlers.

Their descendants. Veterans who served in the Civil War, in World War I, and in World War II; three different generations answering three different calls. And then there's John Alexander Fox.

The marker calls him Peaster's most famous citizen, and it's hard to argue. Fox is the man who created the Buster Brown character, the very one used in the Buster Brown Shoe Company's advertising campaign. A little cartoon figure known just about everywhere, and the mind behind him came from this quiet Parker County town.

So next time you pass through Peaster, remember: there's a cemetery here that's been keeping watch since 1886, on land a South Carolinian bought in 1870 and eventually gave back to the community. And somewhere among those graves rests the man who dreamed up one of the most recognized characters in American advertising. Peaster, Texas; a small town with a long memory and at least one story nobody saw coming.

What the marker says

South Carolina native Henry H. Peaster purchased 160 acres here in 1870. The village of Peaster began with Henry Peaster's sale of town lots here in the late 1880s. The earliest recorded burial is that of Mary D. Hunt in 1886. In 1893 Peaster donated two acres here for cemetery purposes. Still active, the cemetery contains the graves of early area settlers and their descendants; veterans of the Civil War, World War I, and World War II; and Peaster's most famous citizen, John Alexander Fox, who created the "Buster Brown" character for the Buster Brown Shoe Company's advertising campaign. Sesquicentennial of Texas Statehood 1845-1995.