Sansom/Wedgman Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker says about the Sansom/Wedgman Cemetery in Limestone County. Now settle in, because this one starts the way all the best Texas stories do: with people coming a long way to build something that outlasts them. After the Civil War ended, a group of settlers made their way out of Mississippi and found themselves on the banks of a tributary of the Navasota River, a little waterway folks called Running Branch.

Among them were Dr. J. L.

Sansom, P. K. McKenzie, and Allen Goodwin.

They were coming into Reconstruction Texas, which is to say they were coming into uncertainty, into hardship, into a land that was being remade from the ground up. And what did they do? They built a church.

They built a school. They called their community Mount Joy. Now, that name carries a kind of stubborn optimism, doesn't it.

You don't name a place Mount Joy unless you are determined to find some. Around 1870, Dr. Sansom took two acres of his own land and set them aside for a cemetery.

That is a man thinking about the long view. The oldest marked graves in that cemetery are dated 1873, and they are still there, still keeping their record. By 1877, Sansom had sold part of his acreage to a man named H.

Wageman, a name that got respelled over time as Wedgman, and that's where the cemetery gets its double name. In 1929, land for a right-of-way and cemetery parking was deeded out of what had been Wageman's land, so even the practical business of getting there has roots going back generations. Dr.

Sansom himself is buried in that cemetery. So is J. W.

Seale, who served as postmaster of the nearby settlement of Seale. The tombstones carry the names of area pioneers and several Confederate veterans. And then there are the smaller stones, the ones that mark infants, concentrated in the latter years of the nineteenth century.

The marker doesn't flinch from saying what that means: it reflects the hardship of pioneer life. Mount Joy or not, this ground received more than its share of grief. Most of the early settlements that once surrounded that cemetery are gone now, vanished the way frontier communities do.

But the Sansom/Wedgman Cemetery is still there, still in use, still cared for by descendants of the very pioneers who first broke this ground along Running Branch. Some things, it turns out, are built to last.

What the marker says

Located on a tributary of the Navasota River known as Running Branch, this cemetery has been in use since the days of Reconstruction in Texas. Soon after the end of the Civil War, a group of settlers, including Dr. J. L. Sansom, P. K. Mckenzie, and Allen Goodwin, came to this area from Mississippi and built a church and school. The community came to be called Mount Joy. Dr. Sansom donated two acres of his land for this cemetery about 1870. By 1877, Sansom had sold part of his acreage to H. Wageman (later spelled Wedgman). Land for a right-of-way and cemetery parking was deeded from Wageman's land in 1929. The oldest marked graves in the cemetery are dated 1873. Dr. Sansom is buried here, as is J. W. Seale, who served as postmaster of the nearby settlement of Seale. Tombstones bear the names of many other area pioneers and several Confederate veterans. The number of infants buried here during the latter years of the nineteenth century reflects the hardship of pioneer life. Although most of the early settlements are gone, the Sansom/Wedgman Cemetery remains in use and is cared for by descendants of the pioneers. 1985