Milford Cemetery
Milford, Ellis County, Texas
Marker Inscription
W.R. Hudson and J.M. Higgins, early pioneers in this area, came from Cherokee County in East Texas to settle here in 1853. They laid off a townsite in 1854 and named it MIlford. The town developed steadily, and soon boasted homes, a school, post office, churches, and other community institutions. Although there are no specific records to document the establishment of the Milford cemetery, the oldest grave is that of E.F. Kimbrough Smith, wife of W.P. Smith, who died at age 23 in 1855. The size of the cemetery has increased over the years, and it is the final resting place of generations of some early Milford families. Ellis County pioneers buried in this historic graveyard include Texas Revolutionary soldiers Thomas Jefferson Jordan and James McDaniel. Nearly two hundred small graves of infants and young children from the 19th century attest to the often harsh living conditions of the frontier. Also interred here, in addition to the Texas Revolutionary soldiers, are veterans of the Mexican War, the Civil War, World War I, World War II, and Vietnam. An important element of Milford's history, the cemetery stands as a reminder of the area's frontier heritage.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1853, pioneers W.R. Hudson and J.M. Higgins came west from East Texas and platted the townsite of Milford the following year, quickly building the schools, churches, and post office that anchor a frontier community. The burial ground that grew alongside the town holds generations of those early families, including soldiers of the Texas Revolution and veterans of every American war from the Mexican War through Vietnam. Nearly two hundred small graves of infants and children speak plainly to how hard survival could be on the 19th-century frontier.
Why it matters
A country cemetery like Milford's is a compressed chronicle of American settlement, where the founders, the wars they answered, and the children they lost are all recorded in stone.
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Related people
- · W.R. Hudson
- · J.M. Higgins
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Thomas J. Jordan
Milford, TX
Thomas J. Jordan carried a rifle for the fledgling Texas Army in 1836, the year Texian forces won independence from Mexico at San Jacinto. Tennessee-born like so many who poured into the new republic, he lived out his days on the Blackland Prairie of Ellis County, where he and his wife Stacy are remembered side by side. Their joined dates trace a full pioneer lifetime spanning frontier Texas from revolution to the Gilded Age.
James McDaniel
Milford, TX
James McDaniel, born in Alabama in 1810, was among the men who served in the Texas army during the revolutionary year of 1836, when settlers won independence from Mexico. He and his wife Idabella lived out long lives on the Texas frontier, dying in the 1880s and 1890s. Their marker preserves the memory of an ordinary soldier-settler of the founding generation.
John Marr Hardeman
Italy, TX
This marker honors John Marr Hardeman, a Tennessee-born settler who took up arms as a soldier in the army of the Republic of Texas during the pivotal year of 1836. He lived on into old age in the young state he had helped win, dying in 1891, and is remembered here alongside his wife Mary.
Site of Fort Smith
Itasca, TX
Established about 1846, Fort Smith was one of a chain of posts running from the Colorado to the Red River, built to shield settlers on the advancing Texas frontier. Named for Major Thomas I. Smith, it guarded a line of settlement pressing into contested Indian country. The State of Texas erected this marker in 1936 to record the vanished post.