Farmer Cemetery
Loving, Young County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1877, Baptist preacher W.H. Farmer moved his family to land here. He established the Farmer store, post office, Baptist church and cemetery, where the first burials date to 1880. There were soon approximately 150 residents in Farmer, which was officially platted in 1894. The town grew to include several businesses, three churches, a Masonic lodge and a baseball team. Despite adverse conditions, including heavy rains and long droughts, the town maintained a steady population until World War II, when many men and women left to serve in the military or find work in urban centers. Since that time, the families that stayed in the community have continued to use the cemetery, which is maintained by an association. The burial ground and the many names found among its markers serve as witness to the early town of Farmer. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2002
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1877 the Baptist preacher W.H. Farmer brought his family to this land and built the nucleus of a town — a store, a post office, a church, and a cemetery whose first burials date to 1880. Officially platted in 1894, Farmer grew to some 150 residents with businesses, three churches, a Masonic lodge, and a baseball team, holding on through floods and droughts until World War II drew its people away to military service and city work. The families who remained still tend the burial ground that keeps the vanished town's memory.
Why it matters
Farmer Cemetery testifies to the small rural communities that once dotted Texas and to the wartime and economic changes that emptied them in the twentieth century.
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Related people
- · W.H. Farmer
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Townsite of Old Farmer
Farmer, TX
Named for the Rev. William H. Farmer, a missionary who camped on this spot in 1877 and soon opened a general store and served as first postmaster, the little town of Farmer once bustled with a school, two churches, a newspaper, three doctors, seventeen businesses, and its own justice of the peace. Today the old Farmer ranch house is nearly all that remains. It is a classic North Texas town that flourished briefly and then faded.
Hawkins Chapel
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In 1876 S. J. Hawkins brought his family to the Young County frontier, and kin and neighbors soon gathered around his homestead to form a pioneer community. A school rose in 1879, a summer brush-arbor camp meeting began in 1882, and a Methodist chapel followed in 1884, with a cemetery taking its first burial in 1889. The school and church eventually closed, but descendants still gather each summer beside the cemetery that endures.
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