Whitt Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of the official marker for Whitt Cemetery, out in Parker County, Texas. Now, before there was a town called Whitt, there was just land. Good land, West Texas edge-of-the-frontier land, and people were settling it as far back as about 1855.

The town itself didn't get officially established until 1877, but by then, folks had already been putting down roots for more than twenty years. Whitt started as a farming community; that's the foundation of most of this country, honestly, but it didn't stay small and quiet for long. It became a stagecoach stop on the route between Weatherford and Jacksboro, which means travelers, commerce, news from somewhere else rolling through on a regular basis.

And then, if you can believe it, this little place went and became a regional education center. Two colleges. Not one; two.

Whitt Seminary and Parker Institute both operated here, between 1881 and 1990. Over a hundred years of higher learning in a town you might blink and miss on the highway. Let that sit with you a moment.

But every community, no matter how vital, eventually has to reckon with its dead. And that's where this story turns. Sometime between 1876 and 1879, a man named Oscar Grantham donated land to the community for burial purposes.

That's a particular kind of generosity: not giving land for commerce or crops, but giving it so that your neighbors have somewhere to rest. The graveyard has served as a community burial ground since at least 1879, and the oldest marked burial belongs to Margaret A. Gipson, dating to that very year.

But here's the thing that'll make the back of your neck prickle just a little: there are more than a hundred unmarked graves out there in that ground. A hundred souls without a stone to carry their names. Which tells you the cemetery was active well before 1879; the marked record just didn't catch up to the truth of it.

Over the years, J.N. and M.L. Johnston made additional land donations to enlarge the cemetery, and it grew. It kept growing.

Today it stretches over eight acres and holds more than a thousand graves. A thousand graves. Think about what that means in a single community.

Among those buried there are pioneer settlers (the ones who came out around 1855 when this was barely a place at all) and veterans. Veterans of the Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War One and Two, Korea, and Vietnam. Generation after generation of Parker County people who went off to the far corners of conflict and, one way or another, came home to this ground.

Since 1990, a cemetery association has taken on the work of maintaining the place, keepin it cared for the way it deserves. Whitt may not be the biggest name on the Texas map. But that cemetery holds over a thousand stories, at least a hundred of them with no name left to speak of.

Some places earn their importance quietly, acre by acre, year by year, grave by grave. Whitt Cemetery is one of them.

What the marker says

The town of Whitt was officially established in 1877, but permanent settlement in this area had been taking place since about 1855. Originally a farming community, Whitt became a stagecoach stop for people traveling between Weatherford and Jacksboro. It later developed into a regional education center with the presence of two colleges, Whitt Seminary and Parker Institute, which operated here between 1881 and 1990. Between 1876 and 1879, Oscar Grantham donated land to the community for burial purposes. The graveyard has served as a community burial ground since at least 1879. The oldest marked burial, that of Margaret A. Gipson, dates to that year, but the presence of more than 100 unmarked graves suggests that the cemetery was active prior to that time. J.N. and M.L. Johnston made additional land donations over the years to enlarge the cemetery. Now over eight acres in size, the cemetery has more than 1,000 graves. Among those buried here are pioneer settlers and veterans of the Civil War, Spanish American War, World War I and II, Korea, and Vietnam. Since 1990, the graveyard has been maintained by a cemetery association. It is an important cultural resource in the area. (1992)