Webster-Mimosa Hall Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna pass it along to you. Way out in Harrison County, there's a piece of ground that's been holding the memories of a place called Mimosa Hall Plantation for a long, long time. And the story, like most good Texas stories, starts somewhere else entirely.

John Johnston Webster was Virginia-born, came into this world in 1796, and by 1842 he was done with wherever he'd been and set his sights on the Republic of Texas. He petitioned for land, the way a man does when he means to stay, when he's not just passing through but putting down roots deep enough to matter. He brought his family with him, and Mimosa Hall Plantation is what grew out of that petition.

Now, the cemetery at Mimosa Hall, that ground started receiving the departed in 1844. The first person laid to rest there was the Reverend George F. Heard, Webster's own son-in-law.

Think about that for a moment. A man plants a home, and the first grave in the family cemetery belongs to the man who married into that family. The ground was consecrated in grief before it was ever fully settled in life.

Mrs. Mirriam Webster, born a Brown before she took the Webster name, followed him there. And the cemetery kept its arms open, as they do.

Among the notable graves you'll find the Reverend William Moore Steele. You'll find veterans of several wars, their service spanning conflicts the marker doesn't have to name for you to feel the weight of them. And you'll find five individuals recorded as Webster slaves or ex-slaves, their presence in that ground a complicated and solemn truth that this marker does not flinch from telling.

John Johnston Webster himself, the man who started it all with a land petition and a dream of a home, was born in 1796 and died in 1854. The wall that stands around the oldest graves, the one that still keeps a kind of order over all that history, was built by plantation labor. Not by hired hands brought in from somewhere else.

By the labor of the plantation itself. That wall has been standing a good while, and it intends to keep standing. Some things in Harrison County are just built to last.

What the marker says

Virginia-born John Johnston Webster (1796-1854) brought his family to the Republic of Texas, petitioning for land on which to establish a home in 1842. In 1844 Webster's son-in-law, the Rev. George F. Heard, became the first person to be buried in the cemetery at Mimosa Hall Plantation. He was followed by Mrs. Mirriam (Brown) Webster. Other notable graves include those of the Rev. William Moore Steele and five Webster slaves or ex-slaves. Veterans of several wars also are interred here. The wall surrounding the oldest graves was constructed by plantation labor. (1998)