Refuge Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker at Refuge Cemetery tells it, and I'll do my best to pass it along true. Now, some places earn their names through grand events, through battles or boomtowns or acts of Congress. And then some places earn their names through something quieter.

Something a woman simply decided, standing on a piece of ground she trusted. It starts, as a lot of Texas stories do, with people coming from somewhere else. Reuben Brown, born in 1805, and Sarah Parker Brown, born in 1807, pulled up from Illinois and settled here in 1833.

This was Houston County, and the land was not what you'd call forgiving. But they put down roots anyway, and they raised a family. Their oldest son, John, was born in 1837 at a place called Old Fort Brown.

And here is where the story gets a little remarkable. John Brown lived his entire life within a mile of that birthplace. The whole wide world could spin and change around him, and John Brown stayed put.

He was still there in 1865, when he deeded two acres of land to Houston County, for a church and a school. A practical man, doing a practical thing. But by then, his parents were already in the ground at that very site.

Reuben had died in 1859. Sarah had gone before him, in 1852. And it was John's mother-in-law, Mary Murchison, born in 1814, who looked at that ground and gave it a name.

She called it Refuge. Just that. Refuge.

Mary Murchison would live all the way to 1903, long enough to see what that name meant to people. The story doesn't stop with John. Reuben Brown had a second wife, Amanda, born in 1822, whose maiden name was Ross and who had gone by Hogue before.

Their son Jim Brown came into the world in 1858, and in 1889 he gave one more acre to the cemetery. One more acre of ground, added to what his father's family had already set aside. Today an association tends to Refuge Cemetery, keeping it and the heritage it holds from slipping away.

Several generations of one family, deciding again and again that this particular ground was worth protecting. A woman named Mary Murchison looked at a burial place and called it Refuge. I'd say she got that exactly right.

What the marker says

Reuben (1805-1859) and Sarah Parker (1807-1852) Brown came from Illinois to settle here in 1833. Their oldest son, John (1837-1921), lived his entire life within a mile of Old Fort Brown, his birthplace. In 1865, when John deeded two acres to Houston County for a church and school, his parents had already been laid to rest at the site that his mother-in-law, Mary Murchison (1814-1903), chose to call "Refuge." Jim Brown (1858-1932), son of Reuben and his second wife, Amanda (Ross) Hogue (b. 1822), gave one more acre for cemetery use in 1889. Today, an association cares for this burial ground that records a portion of Houston County's heritage. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2002