Trimble Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Trimble Cemetery, out there in Wise County. Pull over if you can; this one's worth a moment of stillness. Now, the town it belonged to barely left a shadow.

Flatwood, they called it (some knew it as Davis City), a tiny community that flickered to life in the late nineteenth century and then faded, the way small places sometimes do. But the ground remembers. Trimble Cemetery held on long after the community around it let go.

The cemetery takes its name from James W. Trimble, an early owner of the property, who purchased land including the cemetery site back in 1877. That same year, 1877, the earliest marked graves were already being dug.

One-year-old Ollie M. Rucker and sixteen-year-old Benjamin J. Brown, both gone in that same year.

A baby and a teenager. The land was barely claimed, and it was already keeping the hardest kind of record. For decades the cemetery existed without formal boundaries, without legal standing; just earth and memory doing the work.

Then in 1921, two men named B.F. Walker and W.S. Smith each deeded a small portion of their land to formally establish the Trimble Cemetery as a proper, recognized place.

Three acres. That's what they gave. Three acres to make official what grief had already been doing quietly for forty-some years.

Flatwood is gone. Davis City is gone. But Trimble Cemetery is still out there in Wise County, and as that marker says, it serves as a record of the early settlers of those communities and their descendants.

Some stories don't get told in newspapers or courthouse ledgers. Some stories get told in three acres of Texas ground, one name at a time.

What the marker says

TRIMBLE CEMETERY TRIMBLE CEMETERY WAS THE MAIN BURIAL GROUND USED BY THE RESIDENTS OF THE TINY COMMUNITY OF FLATWOOD (ALSO KNOWN AS DAVIS CITY) THAT EXISTED DURING THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE CEMETERY IS NAMED FOR AN EARLY OWNER OF THE PROPERTY, JAMES W. TRIMBLE, WHO PURCHASED LAND INCLUDING THE CEMETERY SITE IN 1877. IN 1921, B.F. WALKER AND W.S. SMITH EACH DEEDED A SMALL PORTION OF THEIR LAND TO FORMALLY ESTABLISH THE THREE-ACRE TRIMBLE CEMETERY. THE EARLIEST MARKED GRAVES IN THE CEMETERY ARE THOSE OF ONE-YEAR-OLD OLLIE M. RUCKER AND SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD BENJAMIN J. BROWN, WHO BOTH DIED IN 1877. THE CEMETERY SERVES AS A RECORD OF THE EARLY SETTLERS OF THE DAVIS CITY AND FLATWOOD COMMUNITIES AND THEIR DESCENDANTS. HISTORIC TEXAS CEMETERY – 2008