Jericho Cemetery
Clarendon vicinity, Donley County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(1 mile west) Settlement of this area of Donley County began in the late 19th century, before the town of Jericho was founded as a station on the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf rail line about 1902. Early community burials took place in the pasture near this site, and the graveyard eventually was set aside in the county deed records. The first documented burial is that of Mattie Ray (1850-1895), and the second is that of seven-month-old Garil Prest Schaffer, who died in 1897. Others buried in the Jericho Cemetery include victims of smallpox and influenza epidemics, military veterans and area pioneers. (2001)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Settlement of this stretch of Donley County began in the late 1800s, before the town of Jericho rose as a station on the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf line around 1902. Early burials took place in the open pasture, and the ground was eventually set aside in county deed records. Among those laid to rest here are Mattie Ray, the first documented burial in 1895, an infant who died in 1897, and later victims of smallpox and influenza epidemics alongside veterans and pioneers.
Why it matters
The cemetery preserves the human record of a Panhandle railroad community, where epidemics and hard frontier life left their mark on the earliest settlers.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Donley County lies in the eastern Texas Panhandle. For most of the nineteenth century this was buffalo country and the homeland of Plains tribes. After the Red River War of the mid-1870s ended that era, ranchers moved in, followed by small settlers who tried to make farms and homes on the open grassland. The marker notes that settlement around here began in the late 1800s, before any town existed to anchor it.
The railroad changed that. Around 1902 the Chicago, Rock Island and Gulf line came through, and Jericho was founded as a station on it. Across the Panhandle, rail lines decided which places would grow and which would not. A station meant a link to markets, a way to ship cattle and grain, and a reason for stores, schools and churches to gather in one place.
Life here was still hard and could be dangerous. Rural communities had little medical care, and infectious disease could sweep through a district with terrible speed. The marker's mention of smallpox and influenza epidemics points to a reality shared by much of the country in these decades, when a single outbreak could fill a small graveyard faster than any frontier hazard.
People & events
The cemetery began the way many frontier cemeteries did, without a plan. When someone died, neighbors buried them in the pasture near this spot. Only later was the ground formally set aside in the county deed records. That simple administrative step turned an informal burial place into a lasting community cemetery.
The first documented burial is that of Mattie Ray, who was born in 1850 and died in 1895. Her grave predates the railroad town of Jericho by several years, so she belonged to the earliest generation of settlers here, people who arrived before there was a station to arrive at. The second documented burial is heartbreaking in its smallness: Garil Prest Schaffer, seven months old, who died in 1897. Infant graves like his appear again and again in pioneer cemeteries, and they are a quiet record of how fragile life could be.
In the years that followed, the cemetery took in the whole sweep of the community. Victims of smallpox and influenza epidemics lie here, losses that would have shaken a small place where everyone knew each other. So do military veterans and the area's pioneers, who did the work of turning grassland into farms and ranches. Taken together, the graves are the closest thing Jericho has to a full written history of its people.
Its place in the American story
Jericho is a small story that echoes across the Great Plains. Hundreds of communities were founded as railroad stations around the turn of the twentieth century. Many thrived for a time, and many later faded as farming changed, highways bypassed them and young people moved to the cities. Often the cemetery is what lasts longest, because the families who remain keep tending it after the stores and schools have closed.
Transportation shaped Jericho's fate more than once. The name Jericho is also tied to the "Jericho Gap," a stretch of early Route 66 in this part of the Panhandle that became infamous among travelers for mud in wet weather. First the railroad and then the highway brought the wider country through this stretch of plains, and both left their mark on the area's memory.
The epidemics recorded here connect the place to one of the big themes of American life before modern medicine. Smallpox and influenza struck rural and urban America alike, and in an isolated Panhandle community there was little to do but nurse the sick and bury the dead. A graveyard like this one turns those national waves of disease into individual names.
If you visit
The cemetery lies about a mile west of the marker, out in open Panhandle country. Like many rural cemeteries, it is a place for quiet reflection, so go respectfully, stay on established paths, and leave gates and graves as you find them. Do not cross private land you do not have permission to enter.
In a cemetery like this, look for the oldest stones, and especially for the small ones that mark infants and children. Notice the dates, and whether several deaths cluster in the same year, which can hint at an epidemic passing through. Veterans' markers often stand out with their uniform style.
The drive is part of the experience. This is wide, wind-swept country with big skies, and imagining it with a railroad depot and a muddy early highway helps bring the vanished community back into view. If you are following the old Route 66 corridor across the Texas Panhandle or exploring nearby Clarendon, Jericho makes a thoughtful stop: a place where the story of the plains is told one name at a time.
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
- · Mattie Ray
Themes & tags
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