Whitehead Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. The Henry Whitehead family made their way to Texas from Mississippi sometime in the 1850s, and by around 1862 they had put down roots right here in Houston County. Henry himself, born in 1821, was a Confederate veteran, and he lived the kind of life that leaves marks on the land.

In 1870, he laid his first wife to rest on his own property. Her name was Mary Ann, though folks called her Polly, and she was born a Priest before she became a Whitehead. That burial, right there on Henry's land, is what started this cemetery.

Now Henry and Polly had seven children together. Seven. And of all those children, only one ended up buried on this ground alongside the family that started it.

That was Aaron. Born in 1854, died in 1927. Aaron married a woman named Elizabeth, born in 1859, died in 1928.

And here is where the story takes a turn that most family tales never manage. Aaron and Elizabeth's descendants didn't walk away from this place. They kept coming back.

They kept it up. They kept it going. Henry Whitehead passed in 1877, and he left behind a patch of ground just a little over two acres.

Today that ground holds more than sixty graves. Two acres of memory, tended by the hands of people who never forgot where they came from.

What the marker says

The Henry Whitehead family came to Texas from Mississippi during the 1850s and settled in Houston County about 1862. A confederate veteran, Henry Whitehead (1821-1877) established this family cemetery on his land with the burial of first wife, Mary Ann "Polly" (Priest), in 1870. Only one of their seven children, Aaron, is buried here. The descendants of Aaron (1854-1927) and Elizabeth (1859-1928) Whitehead have continued to use and maintain the family burial ground. The site covers more than two acres and contains over sixty graves.