Riverside Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, Bosque County has its share of stories, but this one starts with a man a long way from home. Ward Keeler was a New York native, which in 1870s Texas might as well have meant he'd arrived from the moon.

But he came to Bosque County around 1870, and according to local oral tradition, he and his family donated the land for both a church and a cemetery. And from that ground, the town of Iredell took root. You want to talk about leaving a mark on a place, well, Keeler left several.

The town. The church. And the land where the town would eventually bury its dead.

Now, the oldest documented grave in Riverside Cemetery belongs to James W. P. Ware, who died in November of 1870.

Think about that for a second. The town is barely getting started, and the cemetery is already receiving its first documented resident. That's the frontier for you.

It doesn't wait. Generations of Iredell citizens followed, and today Riverside Cemetery holds more than a thousand interments, marked and unmarked both. More than a thousand.

Some with stones that have stood through Texas heat and Texas storms, their carved letters still telling you who was here. Some with nothing left to mark them at all but the ground itself. The varied styles of those gravestones, the marker tells us, stand as a reminder of the community's pioneer heritage.

Different eras, different hands, different stories, all gathered in one place along the Bosque County soil that a man from New York once gave over to his neighbors, and their neighbors, and everyone who came after. That cemetery is still out there. Still keeping count.

What the marker says

According to local oral tradition, land for this cemetery and the adjacent church was donated by the family of Ward Keeler, a New York native who came to Bosque County about 1870 and founded the town of Iredell. The oldest documented grave here is that of James W. P. Ware, who died in November 1870. The primary burial ground for Iredell citizens for generations, Riverside Cemetery contains more than one thousand interments, both marked and unmarked. Its varied styles of gravestones stand as a reminder of the community's pioneer heritage. (1992)