Seminole Indian Scouts' Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, there's a cemetery out on the Fort Clark Reservation (founded September 1st, 1872) and if you drive past it without knowing what it holds, that'd be a shame. Because the ground there is full of stories that Texas doesn't always tell loud enough.

This is the Seminole Indian Scouts' Cemetery, over in Kinney County, and it is a burial site of heroic U.S. Army men, their families, and their heirs. Let that word settle for a moment: heroic.

That's not my word. That's the word carved into the record. These were Seminole men, and most of them came originally out of Florida, around 1850.

From there, life carried them to northern Mexico, to Texas; the kind of wandering that wasn't exactly chosen. And yet, when the time came, they answered a call. In the 1870s, they joined up alongside Lieutenant John L.

Bullis (a man who'd later rise to the rank of general) and Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie, and together they worked to rid Texas of hostile Indians during that hard decade. These scouts rode into country that didn't forgive mistakes.

They did the work. Now, the back of this marker (and I love that there's a back to this marker, like the story was too big to fit on one face) it names some of the many men buried here. John Bowlegs.

Elijah Daniels. Pompey Factor. Renty Grayson.

John Jefferson. Billy July and Sampson July. George Kibbit.

Issac Payne. Pompey Perryman. Joseph Phillips.

Billie Wilson, Issac Wilson, Kelina Wilson. Those are names that ought to be spoken out loud, and now you've heard them. Some stories, the land holds onto quietly for a long time; and sometimes all it takes is a marker, and somebody willing to stop and read it.

What the marker says

(Founded on Fort Clark Reservation, Sept. 1, 1872) Burial site of heroic U.S. Army men, families, and heirs. These Seminoles came mainly from Florida about 1850; lived in northern Mexico or Texas; joined Lt. (later a general) John L. Bullis and Col. Ranald S. Mackenzie in ridding Texas of hostile Indians, 1870s. (1971) Incise on plate on back of marker: The following are among the many scouts buried here: John Bowlegs, Elijah Daniels, Pompey Factor, Renty Grayson, John Jefferson, Billy July, Sampson July, George Kibbit, Issac Payne, Pompey Perryman, Joseph Phillips, Billie Wilson, Issac Wilson, Kelina Wilson.