Hart-Herrington Cemetery
Kountze, Hardin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
William Henry Hart was born in Georgia in March 1804. Hampton Jackson Herrington was born in the same state in 1817. Hart married Sarah Granberry Herrington, becoming "Hamp" Herrington's brother-in-law. Herrington married Rachel Overstreet in 1838; after Rachel's death he married her sister, Elizabeth Overstreet, in 1845. The Hart and Herrington families moved to the East Texas community of Providence in 1853. In that year Hart served as a delegate from Jefferson County to select a nominee for congressman for East Texas. Hart and Herrington purchased eighty acres of the W. M. Bumstead survey n 1854. A portion of that land was to be set aside for a cemetery. When Hardin County was created in 1858, William H. Hart was elected county treasurer and his brother-in-law, "Hamp" Herrington, became the first chief justice (county judge). William Hart died in 1861 and his body was interred near this site, formally establishing the cemetery. The next burial was that of Sarah Ann Teel of Saratoga, who died in 1872. Sarah Herrington Hart was buried beside her husband in 1896. Hampton Herrington served the people of Hardin County until his own death in 1899. Of the nine marked graves in Hart-Herrington Cemetery, eight are those of relatives of William and Sarah Hart or Hampton and Elizabeth Herrington. Believed to be the second graveyard established in Hardin County, the Hart-Herrington Cemetery remains as a chronicle of the pioneers of East Texas.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Georgia-born brothers-in-law William Henry Hart and Hampton Jackson 'Hamp' Herrington moved their families to the East Texas community of Providence in 1853 and set aside part of their land for a cemetery. When Hardin County was created in 1858, Hart became county treasurer and Herrington its first chief justice. Hart's 1861 burial formally established the graveyard, believed to be the second in the county, where eight of the nine marked graves belong to the two founding families.
Why it matters
It preserves the intertwined families who helped organize Hardin County, marking one of the earliest burial grounds in that corner of East Texas.
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Related people
- · William Henry Hart
- · Hampton Jackson Herrington
- · Sarah Herrington Hart
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Kountze Church of Christ
Kountze, TX
This Church of Christ congregation gathered in 1886, a year before Kountze became the Hardin County seat, worshipping first in the Masonic Hall and the courthouse. In 1891 it raised a permanent building on land donated by Judge and Mrs. W. W. Cruse, calling worshippers with a church bell cast back in 1819. For well over a century the congregation has been woven into the fabric of Kountze's history.
Pine Lodge # 642, A. F. & A. M.
Kountze, TX
Chartered in December 1886, Pine Lodge No. 642 gathered its first thirteen Masons from across Hardin County, with William B. Pedigo serving as founding master. Meeting first in the Washburn Building on Main Street, the lodge answered local calls for aid and helped launch new lodges in neighboring towns. It bought its longtime home in 1945, anchoring fraternal life in the East Texas pinewoods for generations.
Hardin County
Kountze, TX
Hardin County was created on January 22, 1858, and organized that August, taking its name from the Hardin family of neighboring Liberty County. Five Hardin brothers—Benjamin Watson, Augustine Blackburn, William, Frank, and Milton—had come to Texas in 1825, among the early Anglo-American settlers of the region. The county seat sat at the town of Hardin until 1887, when it moved to Kountze.
Courthouses of Hardin County
Kountze, TX
Since Hardin County was created in 1858, its seat of government has occupied a succession of buildings, beginning with a two-story log structure that burned around 1886 and took the county's early records with it. A frame courthouse followed in 1887—famously built around its safe—then a domed 1905 masonry building of West Texas stone and imported St. Louis brick, and finally a modern facility in 1958. Remarkably, the little 1887 building still stands near the square as law offices.