Salem Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll pass it along just as it stands. Out here in Hill County, there's a piece of ground called Salem Cemetery, and the story of that ground goes back further than most folks stop to think about. The first interment was in 1870, though that grave was later moved on.

The oldest graves you'll find there now belong to twin infants, E. and P. J. Sheet, who died on February 9, 1871, and to Synthia Green, who died August 9 of that same year.

Small lives, brief as a candle in a west Texas wind, and yet their names have outlasted plenty that seemed more permanent. Then, in 1876, three men, R. M. and W.

J. Graham and F. M.

Reed, gave the land to the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Not just for a cemetery, mind you. For a church, a school, and a cemetery, three things a community plants when it means to stay.

And for a good long while, it did stay. The church held services. The school taught children.

And the cemetery received the departed, one by one, until 826 graves were laid into that ground. Among them rests Nathaniel Addison, born in 1811 and died in 1900, a veteran of the Texas Revolution. Think on that quietly for a moment.

The church, though, closed in 1913. The school consolidated with Irene in 1917. Two of the three purposes that land was given for, gone.

But the Salem Cemetery Association, organized in 1904, is still active. Still tending that ground, still honoring those 826 souls, twin infants and Texas Revolution veterans alike. Some things, it turns out, outlast everything else.

What the marker says

The first interment here was in 1870, but that grave was later moved. Oldest graves now are those of twin infants E. and P. J. Sheet, who died Feb. 9, 1871, and Synthia Green, who died August 9, 1871. R. M. and W. J. Graham and F. M. Reed gave the land to the Methodist Episcopal Church South in 1876 as a site for a church, school, and cemetery. One of the 826 graves here is that of Nathaniel Addison (1811-1900), a veteran of the Texas Revolution. The Salem Cemetery Association, organized in 1904, is still active, but the church was closed in 1913, and the school consolidated with Irene in 1917.