Handley Cemetery
Teville, Mitchell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Site given by John J. Handley (1842-1935), Confederate veteran who settled here in 1892, after living earlier in Georgia and in Smith and Comanche Counties, Texas. A farmer, he lived to see agriculture rival ranching. Teville (named for "T" Junction in road) post office was opened here in 1906; closed 1910. W.B. Berry, with W.H. Badgett, surveyed 4-acre cemetery, 1914. Graves were moved from across road into this ground. In 1945 Mr. and Mrs. E.T. Strain gave one acre to enlarge the cemetery. Four generations of Handley's family and neighbors rest here. (1970)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
John J. Handley, a Confederate veteran who had lived in Georgia and elsewhere in Texas, settled in this West Texas country in 1892 and gave the land for its cemetery. He lived long enough to watch farming rise to rival ranching on the plains, and the tiny community of Teville—named for a road junction—rose and faded with him, its post office open only from 1906 to 1910. Four generations of the Handley family and their neighbors now rest in the ground he provided.
Why it matters
The cemetery marks the arrival of settled farming on the West Texas frontier, where Confederate veterans and their families transformed open range into homesteads and communities.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the 1870s and early 1880s, the country around present-day Mitchell County was cattle land. After the buffalo herds were destroyed and the Southern Plains tribes were forced onto reservations, ranchers moved in to graze huge herds on open grass. When the Texas and Pacific Railway pushed west across this region in the early 1880s, it brought towns, shipping pens, and a steady stream of newcomers.
Many of those newcomers came to farm, not ranch. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, people argued hard about whether the semi-arid plains of West Texas could grow crops at all. Farmers bet on cotton and grain, dug wells, and gambled on the rain. Some years they won and many years they lost. Slowly the plow spread across what had been rangeland.
This was also the era when men who had fought in the Civil War were growing old and moving west. Across the former Confederacy, veterans and their families packed up and went looking for a new start on cheaper land. Texas's western counties took in many of them.
People & events
John J. Handley was born in 1842, which put him at about the right age to serve when the Civil War began. He fought for the Confederacy. His later life followed a restless path west: from Georgia to Smith County in East Texas, then to Comanche County in central Texas, and finally to this spot in 1892. Each move took him farther out toward the edge of settled farming.
Handley came as a farmer to country still ruled by ranching, and he lived long enough to see the balance shift. He died in 1935 at about ninety-three. By then crops had grown into a real rival to cattle on these plains. That change took place over his own lifetime and was made by families like his.
A small community grew up around him. It was named Teville after the T-shaped junction in the road, and it had its own post office from 1906 to 1910, which is a short run that says a lot about how fragile these plains settlements were. Handley gave land for a burial ground. In 1914 W.B. Berry and W.H. Badgett surveyed four acres, and graves from across the road were moved in. In 1945 Mr. and Mrs. E.T. Strain gave another acre as the cemetery kept growing. Four generations of Handleys and their neighbors now rest here.
Its place in the American story
Handley Cemetery tells, on a small scale, one of the biggest stories of the late 1800s: open range became farmland across the Great Plains. From the Dakotas to West Texas, homesteaders and small farmers moved onto land that cattlemen had treated as open pasture. That change reshaped the American West's economy, politics and landscape.
It also reflects the long reach of the Civil War. Many veterans, Union and Confederate, spent their postwar years moving west in search of land and a new start. Handley's path from Georgia across Texas matches that pattern exactly, and his grave in a plains cemetery links the war to the settling of the West.
Places like Teville are the lost towns of American history. Across the country, thousands of tiny communities got a post office, a school or a church, then faded as railroads, roads and consolidation pulled people to bigger towns. Often the cemetery is the only thing left, and a family's burial ground becomes the record that a community was ever here.
If you visit
This is wide, open West Texas country with big skies, long horizons and farm and ranch land in every direction. The cemetery is a small, quiet place. As you walk among the stones, look for family names that repeat across generations. The four generations the marker mentions are there in the stone.
Notice the setting, too. The name Teville came from a junction in the road, so pay attention to the lay of the roads as you arrive. Try to picture a crossroads settlement with its own post office where today you may see only fields.
The stop fits naturally into a drive through Mitchell County and the surrounding plains, and it pairs well with the railroad towns that grew up along the old Texas and Pacific line. Please be respectful. This is still a burial ground where local families have loved ones.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · John J. Handley
- · W.B. Berry
- · W.H. Badgett
Themes & tags
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