Miles Cemetery
Concord, Rusk County, Texas
Marker Inscription
THE COMMUNITY OF LAWSONVILLE, LOCATED IN PRESENT DAY CONCORD, WAS NAMED AFTER HENRY M. LAWSON WHO INHERITED THE LAND FROM HIS FATHER, IRVIN LAWSON, IN THE 1840s. MANY OF THE EARLY SETTLERS OF THE COMMUNITY WERE FORMER SLAVES OF NEARBY PLANTATIONS WHO CAME TO LAWSONVILLE TO ESTABLISH HOMES AND FIND WORK. THE COMMUNITY WAS RAPIDLY GROWING BY THE 1860s AND MOST OF THE LAWSONVILLE FAMILIES WORKED AS FARMERS, RANCHERS, SHARECROPPERS, OR WOODCUTTERS. IN 1877, THE LAWSONVILLE POST OFFICE WAS ESTABLISHED WITH AMANDA LAWSON, WIFE OF HENRY M. LAWSON, AS THE POSTMASTER. IN THE 1880s, THE COMMUNITY HAD THREE SAWMILLS, THREE COTTON GINS, A GENERAL STORE, THREE CHURCHES, AND A SCHOOL. THE MILES CEMETERY IS THE ONLY REMAINING VESTIGE OF THE LAWSONVILLE COMMUNITY. ALTHOUGH THE CEMETERY BEGAN AS A FAMILY PLOT, IT INCLUDED THE BURIALS OF THE MILES FAMILY’S SLAVES AND AFRICAN-AMERICANS CITIZENS OF THE COMMUNITY. THE EARLIEST MARKED GRAVE FOR BENJAMIN FRANKLIN MILES IS DATED 1864. HOWEVER, THE PRESENCE OF A NUMBER OF UNMARKED GRAVES SUGGESTS THE POSSIBILITY OF EARLIER INTERMENTS. MEMBERS OF THE MILES FAMILY ARE BURIED WITHIN A WROUGHT IRON FENCE ENCLOSURE, INCLUDING THAT OF ALBERT B. MILES, A PROFESSOR OF SURGERY AT TULANE UNIVERSITY. OUTSIDE OF THIS ENCLOSURE ARE A NUMBER OF GRAVES MARKED BY ROCKS, CEDAR WOOD, AND PLANTED FLOWERS. AN ASSOCIATION ESTABLISHED IN 2009 HAS OVERSEEN THE AFFAIRS AND UPKEEP OF THIS SITE THAT CHRONICLES THE HERITAGE OF THE COMMUNITY.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The community of Lawsonville, in present-day Concord, took its name from Henry M. Lawson and drew many former slaves from nearby plantations who came to build homes and find work as farmers, sharecroppers, and woodcutters. By the 1880s it boasted three sawmills, three cotton gins, a store, three churches, and a school, and its post office was run by Amanda Lawson. Today the Miles Cemetery—holding the Miles family, the people they had enslaved, and other African American residents, from a fenced family plot to graves marked only by rocks and cedar—is all that remains of Lawsonville.
Why it matters
The cemetery is the last trace of a vanished freedmen's community, preserving both the industry that once sustained it and the intertwined lives of the enslaved and their enslavers.
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Related people
- · Henry M. Lawson
- · Amanda Lawson
- · Albert B. Miles
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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