Saginaw Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker at Saginaw Cemetery has to say — and friend, this one earns every word. Sometime in the 1890s, a man named John Allebaugh Bowman made up his mind. He gathered nineteen people — nineteen souls — and led them on a three-week journey out of Missouri, bound for Tarrant County, Texas.

Three weeks on the road. You think about the dust, the wagons, the arguing, the wondering if they'd made a terrible mistake. But they made it.

John and his brother Frederick Kline Bowman put down roots midway between Haslet and Saginaw, on adjoining properties, side by side the way brothers sometimes do. And John, being the kind of man who saw a need and moved to fill it, founded the Saginaw Cemetery Association to serve the people settling up around them. By 1899, that Association was formally incorporated under the laws of the State of Texas, with five trustees on the books — R.A.

Barrow, S.A. Shelton, J.A. Bowman himself, Anderson Hunter, and H.L.

Pierce. Now here is where the story turns, and it turns hard. The first person buried in that new cemetery was John David Bowman — John Allebaugh's own son.

February 19, 1899. The ground was barely broken for the living before it had to receive the dead. And then, in the six months that followed, John Allebaugh himself was gone.

His wife Susanna, gone. Their other son Roscoe, gone. Four members of one family, inside of half a year, all interred in the very ground John had worked to consecrate for his neighbors.

They left behind nine young orphans. Nine children in the Bowman family, suddenly without a mother or a father or a brother. You let that number sit with you a moment.

Life in the cemetery association went on, the way life has a grim habit of doing. Family plots sold for five dollars each. Individual spaces went for two.

In 1900, a man named W.L. Tate signed the deed over to H.L. Pierce — fifty dollars for a piece of ground three hundred by two hundred feet, measured from the southwest corner of the church and school lot.

March of 1901, the first fence went up around the place. July of 1902, four lots — numbers 132, 133, 150, and 151 — were set aside as a potter's field, for those who had no one to buy them a proper plot. A year after that, in July of 1903, a man known only as Mr.

Worthington became the first paid caretaker, earning two dollars every time he cleaned and tended the entire graveyard. Two dollars. The whole place.

Around 1910, the cemetery pushed west, expanding to the boundaries it holds today. You can still tell where the old ground ends and the new begins — the two sections run on different grid systems, like two maps laid edge to edge that never quite agreed on direction. The stones are mostly limestone, granite, and concrete.

Some family plots still have their concrete curbing standing. Military veterans are buried here — from the First World War all the way to the present. And the records.

Most of the earliest ones were destroyed in a fire in 1925. All those names, all those dates, all that careful accounting — gone. What survives is what you can read in the stone, and what the community has held onto in memory.

The marker calls Saginaw Cemetery a chronicle of the history of the community and its people. That's exactly right. It started with nineteen travelers and a three-week road from Missouri, and it has been keeping count ever since.

What the marker says

In the 1890s, John Allebaugh Bowman led 19 people to Tarrant County on a three-week journey from Missouri. John and his brother, Frederick Kline Bowman, owned adjoining properties midway between Haslet and Saginaw. John founded Saginaw Cemetery Association to meet the needs of nearby residents. In 1899, the Association incorporated under the laws of the State of Texas with trustees R.A. Barrow, S.A. Shelton, J.A. Bowman, Anderson Hunter, and H.L. Pierce. John Allebaugh Bowman's son, John David, was the first person buried here on February 19, 1899. In the next six months, John A., his wife Susanna, and their other son, Roscoe, all died and were interred here, leaving nine young orphans in the Bowman family. At this time family plots were sold for $5.00 each, and spaces for $2.00. In 1900, W.L. Tate signed the deed to Saginaw Cemetery to H.L. Pierce for $50.00. The property was 300 by 200 feet measured from the southwest corner of the church and school lot. In March 1901, the first fence was erected around the cemetery. In July 1902, lots #132, 133, 150 and 151 were set aside for use as a potters field. A Mr. Worthington became the first paid caretaker in July 1903, receiving $2.00 each time he cleaned and cared for the entire graveyard. Around 1910, the cemetery expanded to the west to its current boundaries. The two sections can be distinguished by different grid systems. Most gravestones are limestone, granite, and concrete, and some family plots have concrete curbing. Military veterans from World War I to present are interred here. Most of the earliest records were destroyed in a 1925 fire. Saginaw Cemetery remains a chronicle of the history of the community and its people. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2012