Goodall Cemetery
Valley Mills, McLennan County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1846, W.H. Everett of Yellville, Marion County, Arkansas, settled on this 320 acres. He set aside this cemetery at the death of Sarah Hornbeak (1847-1851), daughter of Samuel and Harriet Hornbeak. In 1853 Everett brought his sister Nancy Everett Goodall, widow of William Goodall, and her eight children from Yellville. One of those children, W.B. Goodall (1849-1922), purchased this property from his uncle. There are 30 marked and about nine unmarked graves in this burial ground. Goodall Cemetery Association has established a perpetual care fund.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When W.H. Everett claimed 320 acres of central Texas prairie in 1846, death arrived before permanence did — he set aside this ground after four-year-old Sarah Hornbeak died in 1851. Two years later he brought his widowed sister Nancy Goodall and her eight children west from Arkansas, and one of those children, W.B. Goodall, bought the land and lent it his name. The burial ground holds about forty graves, a small record of the families who settled the McLennan County frontier.
Why it matters
Pioneer cemeteries like this one are the clearest surviving trace of the ordinary families whose migrations filled out antebellum Texas, generation by generation.
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Related people
- · W.H. Everett
- · Sarah Hornbeak
- · Nancy Everett Goodall
- · W.B. Goodall
Themes & tags
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