Winfield Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Winfield Cemetery, out in Titus County. Now, every community has a beginning, and this one starts with two brothers. Calvin and William Barrett came to Texas in the early 1850s, and by 1853 they had put down roots right here in Titus County.

The land they settled took on their name, and for a good while folks knew it simply as the community of Barrett. Then came 1892, and the name changed. The community was renamed Winfield, in honor of the General Passenger Agent for the Texas and St.

Louis Railway. That's the kind of thing that tells you a railroad had real weight in those days. One man's title, one man's name, and suddenly a whole community answers to it.

Walk out into Winfield Cemetery today and you are walking into a particular kind of quiet. The earliest marked graves belong to a mother and her daughter. Mary E.

Binnion Smith and Cora Smith, both of them, died in 1898. The two of them rest there together, the oldest named souls the cemetery has held long enough to mark. Among those who followed them is Ralph Leslie Beck, remembered here as Winfield's first doctor.

A town's first doctor is always something, the one person everybody needed and everybody knew. And then there are the veterans. The graves in Winfield Cemetery carry the weight of six wars: the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, the Korean War, and the Vietnam War.

Generation after generation, from this small corner of Titus County, men went out to those places and some of them came home to be buried right here. Two brothers arrived in 1853 with nothing but a county and a direction. What grew from that is a community, a name on a railway ledger, a doctor's grave, a mother and daughter side by side, and row after row of veterans who answered when they were called.

That's Winfield Cemetery, and it is still holding all of it.

What the marker says

WINFIELD CEMETERY BROTHERS CALVIN AND WILLIAM BARRETT CAME TO TEXAS DURING THE EARLY 1850s AND THEY SETTLED IN TITUS COUNTY IN 1853. THE AREA WHERE THEY SETTLED CAME TO BE KNOWN AS THE COMMUNITY OF BARRETT. IN 1892 THE COMMUNITY’S NAME WAS CHANGED TO WINFIELD, IN HONOR OF THE GENERAL PASSENGER AGENT FOR THE TEXAS AND ST. LOUIS RAILWAY. WINFIELD CEMETERY’S EARLIEST MARKED GRAVES ARE THOSE FOR MOTHER AND DAUGHTER MARY E. BINNION SMITH AND CORA SMITH, WHO BOTH DIED IN 1898. WINFIELD CEMETERY IS ALSO THE FINAL RESTING PLACE OF WINFIELD’S FIRST DOCTOR, RALPH LESLIE BECK. THE CEMETERY CONTAINS GRAVES OF VETERANS OF THE CIVIL WAR, SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR, WORLD WAR I, WORLD WAR II, KOREAN WAR AND VIETNAM WAR. HISTORIC TEXAS CEMETERY – 2007