Sycamore Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Sycamore Cemetery in Newton County. Pull over if you want, because this one deserves a moment. An 1845 land grant brought pioneers out to this part of Texas.

People came, they staked their claims, they built their lives, and some of them, not long after arriving, were buried right here. The oldest dated gravestone belongs to a thirteen-year-old boy named J.I. Jones, born in 1872, gone by 1885.

Thirteen years old. That's the oldest one they could put a date to. But here's the thing about this ground: not every grave has a stone with a name and a year carved into it.

Some of them are marked with nothing more than a rock or a post. It is believed that at least some of those quiet, unnamed spots go all the way back to those earliest years of settlement, back when the land was still new to the people working it. You won't find their names.

You'll just find the stone. Now, the community didn't stop burying its people here after the pioneer days. Not by a long shot.

Honored in this burial ground are veterans of the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea, and Vietnam. Five wars. Five generations of men and women who went away and, for some of them, came back to rest in this same ground their ancestors had first broken in 1845.

The Sycamore Cemetery still serves the community today. An association maintains and cares for it, kept going through the donations of descendants, the grandchildren and great-grandchildren of the people resting beneath those rocks and posts. Some places earn their keep by what they hold.

This is one of them.

What the marker says

An 1845 land grant brought pioneers to this area and it is believed that at least some of the graves here marked with only a rock or a post are from those early years of settlement. The oldest dated gravestone is that of a 13-year-old boy, J.I. Jones (1872-1885). Honored in this burial grond are veterms of the Civil War, World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam, alongside the citizens that setled this area and have contributed to its history and development. The Sycamore Cemetery continies to serve the community and is maintaned and care for by an association through the donatinos of descendants. Historic Texas Cemetery-2000