Veales Creek Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Veales Creek Cemetery in Stephens County. Now settle in, because this one starts before the cemetery existed, out on the open range. Back in the late 1850s, a pair of brothers, the Veals, or Veales, depending on how you write it, came riding out of Palo Pinto County.

Their mission was a roundup of unclaimed Texas cattle, and this creek out in Stephens County is where their name got left behind. They were active in the area for a time, those brothers, before they eventually settled south of Caddo. But the creek kept their name.

And the community that grew up around it, in a place folks called Yanceyville, well, that place needed something a cemetery gives every community sooner or later. A place to keep its people. The land for that cemetery came in three separate gifts.

The first, and the founding one, came in 1891, when George Washington Tompkins, born in 1841, and his wife Jemima C. Tompkins, born in 1843, gave two acres to the community for a public cemetery. Two acres.

A gift, plain and simple. Then decades passed, and a man named Judge C.J. O'Connor, born in 1893, did something quietly remarkable.

In 1940, he moved his property's fence line to give the public better access to that cemetery. And then, in 1983, he did it again. His family carried on that same generosity.

Three separate land gifts across nearly a century, each one saying: this ground belongs to everyone. Now, the cemetery didn't stand alone out there. Nearby sat the Veales Creek School, also known as Cedar Creek School, also known as Sorghum Flat School, a place with apparently more names than it knew what to do with.

It served that community for many years before it closed in 1947. Walk through the Veales Creek Cemetery today and you'll find sandstone, granite, marble, and metal markers rising up out of natural vegetation, all of it wrapped inside a wrought iron fence. The headstones tell their own story.

The earliest burials date to the mid-1870s. Among them is the grave of an unknown traveler, someone who passed through and didn't make it, who died sometime between 1876 and 1878. We don't know the name.

The marker doesn't give one. The earliest marked grave in the original cemetery belongs to a child, little Laura Copeland, from 1879. And from there forward, the cemetery holds generations of pioneering families, including veterans of the Civil War, World War One, World War Two, the Korean War, and Vietnam.

In 1979, descendants of those pioneer families formed the Veales Creek Cemetery Association, and they have been caring for that ground and serving the community ever since. A creek named for brothers who moved on. A cemetery built on gifts.

And a community that, to this day, refuses to forget who's buried there.

What the marker says

The naming of this creek can be attributed to the Veal/Veale brothers from Palo Pinto county, who came to this area in the late 1850s to join in the roundup of unclaimed texas cattle. Though the Veale brothers were active in this area, they eventually settled south of Caddo. Located in an area known as Yanceyville, the Veales Creek Cemetery is comprised of land received in three separate land gifts. In 1891, George Washington Tompkins (1841-1916) and his wife, Jemima C. (Layne) Tompkins (1843-1917), gifted two acres of land to the community for a public cemetery. In 1940, and again in 1983, Judge C.J. O’Connor (1893-1979) and his family moved his property’s fence line to give the public better access to the cemetery. The Veales Creek School (also known as Cedar Creek or Sorghum Flat School), situated near the cemetery, served the community and cemetery for many years until its closure in 1947. The general landscape of the Veales Creek Cemetery is traditional with sandstone, granite, marble, and metal grave markers, and a variety of natural vegetation surrounded by a wrought iron fence. The earliest dated headstones indicate burials as early as the mid-1870s, including the grave of an unknown traveler who died sometime between 1876 and 1878. The earliest marked grave in the original cemetery is that of little Laura Copeland from 1879. Among the many pioneering families interred at this cemetery, there are veterans of the Civil War, WW I, WW II, the Korean War, and Vietnam. The Veales Creek Cemetery Association formed in 1979 by descendants of the pioneer families buried in the cemetery, and continues to care for the cemetery and serve the community.