DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Around 1856, a man named Jonathan Riley packed up his family and made the long haul from Kentucky out to this stretch of Texas. Jonathan was no young man when he arrived — born around 1791, he was already well into his sixties, but he planted roots anyway.
And in 1863, he received the land grant to make it official. This was his ground now. His family's ground.
As it turned out, it would become a lot of people's ground, in a manner of speaking. See, legend has it the cemetery got its start the way a lot of things in frontier Texas got started — with a killing. A thief was killed nearby, and Jonathan Riley, whatever else you might say about him, gave permission for that man to be buried here.
A thief. On his land. Now, whether that says something about Riley's mercy or just his practicality, the marker doesn't say, and I won't guess.
But that first burial opened the door. Riley's own family came to rest here. His neighbors too.
The ground kept receiving them. Then in 1883, Thomas Riley and William Autry stepped up and made it formal — setting aside one full acre, dedicated as a graveyard. After that, burials wound down.
By 1897 they had stopped here, more or less. More or less, because there's always one more chapter, isn't there. Martha Susan Autry, born in 1853 — Riley's daughter — she was interred here in 1937.
Forty years after the cemetery had gone quiet. She came home anyway. Today some of the graves are marked only with sandstones.
Many others have no mark at all. The thief who started it all — well, you can imagine which kind his grave is.
What the marker says
About 1856 Jonathan Riley (b. ca. 1791) brought his family to this area from Kentucky. He received this land grant in 1863. The burial ground began, legend says, when a thief was killed nearby and Riley gave permission for his burial here. Riley's family and neighbors also used the cemetery. In 1883 Thomas Riley and William Autry set aside this one-acre tract for a graveyard. Burials stopped here before 1897, except for that of Riley's daughter Mrs. Martha Susan Autry (b. 1853) who was interred here in 1937. Some graves are now designated only with sandstones; many others are unmarked.