Vinson Cemetery

Duane's take

The way I tell it, I'm going on what the official marker says, so let's see what Limestone County's got for us today. Now, Wiley and Phebe Vinson didn't just pick up and move a little ways down the road. They came all the way from Alabama, loaded up the family, and made their way to Texas in 1851.

That's a commitment. And they didn't stop in the first pretty spot they found, either. They settled in Limestone County in 1859, and once they put down roots, those roots went deep.

The Vinsons were working people. They farmed the land, they ran a gristmill, and they operated a tanning yard. That's not one enterprise, that's three.

The kind of family that didn't leave much daylight between sunrise and sundown. Then in 1870, Wiley bought more land. Could've put every acre to work.

But here's the thing about Wiley Vinson. Out of everything he'd accumulated, everything he'd built and grown and ground and tanned, he set aside one-half acre. Just one-half acre.

For a cemetery. And then, the very next year, 1871, Wiley Vinson died. And he was the first to be buried there.

The man who set the land aside became the first to need it. You can't write that kind of ending. Life just does it on its own.

Phebe followed him in 1873. And over the years, relatives who had lived nearby were laid to rest there too, filling those half-acre grounds with the people who had shared something with the Vinsons, land and blood and time. The cemetery might have faded, the way old family plots sometimes do, quietly overgrown and forgotten.

But in 1962, members of the Fox Family Association, descendants of Wiley Vinson, came back and restored it. And they've been maintaining it ever since. Wiley set aside that ground in 1870, not quite knowing how soon he'd need it.

And more than ninety years later, his own descendants made sure it would last. That half-acre he carved out has held a lot of love, and it's still being held.

What the marker says

Wiley and Phebe Vinson and their children came to Texas from Alabama in 1851. Settling in Limestone County in 1859, the family farmed and operate a gristmill and tanning yard. When Vinson bought additional land in 1870, he set aside one-half acre for this cemetery. He died in 1871, and was the first to be buried here. Other graves include those of his wife, Phebe, who died in 1873, and relatives who lived nearby. Vinson Cemetery was restored in 1962 by members of the Fox Family Association, descendants of Wiley Vinson, who maintain it today. 1974