Woodley Cemetery

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out in Harrison County, there's a piece of ground that holds a story going back further than Texas statehood, back to when Texas was still its own republic. It starts with a man named Wingate Woodley, who arrived in the Republic of Texas in 1839, right around the time Harrison County itself was taking shape.

Now, a year into his new life on the frontier, Wingate received a letter from back home. His father, William, born in 1787, wrote from Georgia in 1840 asking his son to leave the lawlessness of that country and come on back to safety. Wingate read that letter, and then he stayed right where he was.

That's the kind of man we're dealing with. Well, William Woodley eventually got a different idea. If the boy won't come home, maybe home ought to go to the boy.

So in 1843, William and his wife Telitha, a McMichael before she married, packed up their large family, left Alabama, and made the long wagon-train journey to Harrison County to be near their son. They came with children, with hope, and with all the uncertainty that comes with starting over in new country. They settled on their family farm, and life moved forward the way it does, until 1844, when it didn't.

That year, the family buried their young daughter, Harriett Ellen, on that very farm. That burial began the Woodley Cemetery. The same year, 1844, William Woodley wrote his will, and family records suggest he set this site aside in that document specifically for cemetery use.

The will, though, was subsequently lost and never probated. A piece of paper lost to time, but the ground itself remembered its purpose. William and Telitha raised eleven children, and the families of those eleven children, and their descendants after them, formed the nucleus of a community that grew up around this place, a community called Arleston.

Most of the people buried here trace back to that original family. The land stayed in Woodley hands for more than a hundred years, and in 1970, descendants of George and Caroline McJimsey, Caroline being a Woodley by birth, legally set the site aside to preserve it. Then in 1986, the Woodley Cemetery Trust was established to maintain this ground going forward.

And the ground holds quite a range of stories. Veterans buried here served in conflicts spanning from the Creek Indian War in Alabama in 1836 all the way to the Korean Conflict. That's generation after generation answering a call, from a war that was already history when Wingate first came to Texas, to a war fought more than a century later.

One family. One farm. One letter that didn't change a young man's mind, and a father who eventually followed his son anyway.

Sometimes the land you end up on is exactly where you were always supposed to be.

What the marker says

Wingate Woodley arrived in the Republic of Texas in 1839 and settled in Harrison County shortly after its formation that year. He received a letter from his father, William (b. 1787), in 1840, asking that he leave the lawlessness of this area and return to the safety of his former home in Georgia. Wingate remained, and in 1843 his father and mother, Telitha (McMichael), left Alabama with their large family and traveled by wagon train to Harrison county. the cemetery began with the burial of their young daughter, Harriett Ellen, here on their family farm in 1844. Woodley family records suggest that this site was set aside for cemetery use in William Woodley's 1844 will. The will was subsequently lost and never probated. The families of William and Telitha's eleven children and their descendants formed the nucleus of the former community of Arleston and account for most of the people buried here. this site, property of Woodley descendants for more than 100 years, was legally set aside by descendants of George and Caroline (Woodley) McJimsey in 1970. Buried here are veterans of conflicts ranging from the Creek Indian War (Alabama - 1836) to the Korean Conflict. The Woodley Cemetery Trust was established in 1986 to maintain this site.