Pin Oak Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker at Pin Oak Cemetery tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. You're rolling through Milam County now, and if you look toward Pin Oak Creek, you're looking at ground that's been holding memories since before the Civil War. This is the story of Pin Oak Cemetery, and the settlement it kept watch over.

Pull up a chair, friend. This one stretches back a ways. The Pin Oak Settlement, along with the neighboring communities of Gause, Hanover, and Liberty, sent its people to rest along that creek.

The earliest settlers were here by the 1850s, drawn in by fertile soil and the promise of something they could work with their hands. Agriculture was the calling, and these folks answered it. Now here's a thing worth noting.

Many of these early Pin Oak settlers were related to one another. Families had come up from Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, and from Morgan and Marshall counties in Alabama. They arrived together, or found each other soon enough, and they put down roots the way people do when they intend to stay.

They even established a school before the Civil War came along and changed everything. That school kept serving Pin Oak children for generations, right up until 1949, when it consolidated with the Milano Independent School District. But before all that consolidation, before the world started pulling people toward the cities, this community was building something.

In 1896, a man named Walker P. Perkins deeded this very property for use as a cemetery. He conveyed it to three trustees, W.H.

Spinks, R.T. Littleton, and John Ditto. That's how a community says, we are here, and we intend to remember our own.

The earliest known burials belong to Charles Shafer, and then James D. Faubion, both in 1861. Though the marker is careful to remind us there may be older unmarked graves out there, resting quiet under the grass, unknown but not forgotten in spirit.

Walk the grounds today and you'll find vertical stones, curbing, obelisks. And among those interred are veterans of conflicts dating all the way back to the Civil War. These were not small lives.

After World War II, the Pin Oak community began to decline. Residents followed what the marker calls the national trend, moving to urban areas for employment opportunities. The community thinned out.

And the cemetery, left without the daily attention of a thriving settlement around it, deteriorated. But here's the part that earns a long exhale around a campfire. Concerned family members worked to preserve this burial ground.

They didn't let it go. Today, residents and relatives of the deceased continue to care for Pin Oak Cemetery, tending it as what the marker calls a record of the pioneering men and women of the Pin Oak community. That's the thing about a place like this.

The community may have scattered, but the people who came from it, they remember. And as long as somebody's coming back to pull the weeds and straighten the stones, Pin Oak isn't really gone at all.

What the marker says

This burial ground, which extends along Pin Oak Creek, has served the rural Pin Oak Settlement, as well as the surrounding gause, hanover and liberty communities. Most of the area settlers, the earliest of whom were here by the 1850s, took advantage of the area's fertile soil and engaged in agriculture. Many of the early Pin Oak settlers were related, with a number coming from Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, and Morgan and Marshall counties in Alabama. The settlers established a school prior to the Civil War, which served Pin Oak until it consolidated with the Milano Independent School District in 1949. This property was deeded by Walker P. Perkins for use as a cemetery in 1896, when he conveyed it to trustees W.H. Spinks, R.T. Littleton and John Ditto. The earliest known burials, of Charles Shafer and then James D. Faubion, occurred in 1861, though there may be older unmarked graves. Cemetery features include vertical stones, curbing and obelisks. Among the interred are veterans of conflicts dating to the civil war. The Pin Oak community began to decline after World War II, as many residents followed the national trend in moving to urban areas for employment opportunities. The cemetery deteriorated, but concerned family members worked to preserve the burial ground. Today, residents and relatives of the deceased continue to care for the cemetery, which serves as a record of the pioneering men and women of the Pin Oak community.