DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it — and this one asks something of you before we're done. Out in Cass County, there is a piece of ground that has been receiving the dead for well over a century. It is called Whittaker Memorial Cemetery, and the story of how it came to be starts long before Texas was anything close to what it is today.
A man named Willis Whitaker — spelled both ways, Whitaker and Whittaker, depending on who was doing the writing — came out of South Carolina. He arrived in Texas in 1840, bringing his family and more than fifty enslaved people with him. By 1850, Whitaker had acquired nearly three thousand acres.
That is not a farm. That is a dominion. Somewhere within that dominion, six acres were set aside as a cemetery for the enslaved people of the plantation.
Six acres of ground given over to the dead. Now, the marker tells us the earliest graves here may belong to seven Freemen — men who had been freed — killed on this very plantation in 1868. Killed.
The marker does not soften that, and neither will I. That is how this ground began receiving its people. The years that followed did not go easy on this cemetery.
In 1896, malaria swept through and claimed many lives. Smallpox came. Tuberculosis came.
And it is believed that some of those victims were brought here for mass burial. Then 1900 arrived with the wind, and a single windstorm killed eight members of one family. Eight people from one household, gone in a storm.
Many who were laid here never got a proper stone. Makeshift markers. Rocks.
Or nothing at all. Some family members came back later and placed new headstones where the old ones had broken or gone illegible — which is its own kind of love, if you think about it. Documented burials now number more than three hundred and fifty.
Educators are buried here. Businessmen. Veterans.
People who built lives and left marks on the world, and who came home to this six-acre piece of Cass County at the end of it. And here is the thing that lands hardest: this cemetery is still in use. People from the area are still being buried here.
And many who moved away — former residents scattered across wherever life carried them — are returned here to be buried. They come back to this ground that began in sorrow and has held generation after generation ever since. Some places earn their name.
Whittaker Memorial Cemetery has earned every letter of it.
What the marker says
This African American cemetery was once part of a large plantation owned by South Carolina native Willis Whitaker (Whittaker), who came to Texas in 1840 with his family and more than 50 slaves. Whitaker had acquired nearly 3000 acres by 1850; a six-acre tract of land was given as a cemetery for the slaves of the plantation. Those buried here were slaves, freed African Americans, and their descendants. The earliest graves may be those of seven Freemen killed on the plantation in 1868. An epidemic of malaria in 1896 claimed many lives, as did the diseases of smallpox and tuberculosis. It is believed that some of these victims were transported to the cemetery for mass burial. Natural disasters also took their toll; eight members of one family were killed in a wind storm in 1900. Many people were buried in unmarked graves, while others received makeshift markers and rocks as tombstones. Family members placed new headstones to replace some broken or illegible markers. Documented burials number more than 350, including educators, businessmen, and veterans. This cemetery is still in use by citizens of the area, as well as many former residents who are returned here to be buried.