Wood Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best by it. Out here in Coryell County, there's a piece of ground that's been holding the stories of pioneer settlers for well over a century and a half. They call it Wood Cemetery, and the marker says it was probably named for a noted pioneer educator by the name of D.

R. Wood. Probably.

Now that word does a lot of work on a marker, and it ought to, because the land and the people came first, and the naming came after. What we know for certain is this: the cemetery was established in 1858, with the burial of Sarah E. Shipman, wife of a prominent local rancher named John K.

Shipman. That's where it begins. One burial, one name, one year.

Before long, more than twenty additional burials had been recorded in that ground. And then, in 1877, John Shipman himself took a formal step. He deeded eleven and a half acres, setting that land aside for cemetery, church, and school purposes all at once.

Think about what that meant on the frontier. You weren't just marking the dead. You were planting a future alongside them.

The cemetery holds the grave sites of many area pioneer settlers and their descendants, and among them rest veterans of the Civil War and of World Wars I and II. Generation after generation, laid to rest in the same red Texas soil. And here's the part that'll stay with you.

Wood Cemetery is still active today, maintained by an association of descendants of the very people buried there. The living tending to the names of their own. That's not a conclusion.

That's a continuation.

What the marker says

This cemetery, probably named for noted pioneer educator D. R. Wood, was established with the 1858 burial of Sarah E. Shipman, wife of prominent local rancher John K. Shipman. More than 20 additional burials were recorded before John Shipman deeded 11.5 acres here for cemetery, church, and school purposes in 1877. The cemetery contains grave sites of many area pioneer settlers and their descendants and veterans of the Civil War and World Wars I and II. Wood Cemetery remains active and is maintained by an association of descendants of persons buried here.