Olivet Cemetery
Farwell, Parmer County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The Capitol Freehold Land and Investment Company, which incorporated in England in 1884 to finance the XIT Ranch, deeded land for the Olivet Cemetery to James M. Hamlin in Nov. 1908. One of the earliest burials is that of John Armstrong, XIT manager and shipping agent who was shot by cattle thieves while loading cattle onto rail cars in Bovina. A local tragedy is recalled at the plot of the Hassell family, a mother and eight children who were murdered in 1926. About one hundred interments have been indentified in the ten-acre cemetery, including veterans of military conflicts dating to the Civil War. The site was Farwell's first cemetery, and many prominent names in Parmer Co., Texas and Curry Co., New Mexico are represented here.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The English-financed Capitol Freehold Land and Investment Company — the syndicate behind the immense XIT Ranch — deeded ground for Olivet Cemetery in 1908, making it Farwell's first burial place. Among its earliest graves is XIT manager John Armstrong, shot by cattle thieves while loading stock at Bovina, and the cemetery holds the plot of the Hassell family, a mother and eight children murdered in 1926. Roughly a hundred interments include veterans reaching back to the Civil War.
Why it matters
Olivet Cemetery gathers in one ground the ranching empire, frontier violence, and pioneer families that made the Texas–New Mexico borderlands.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Olivet Cemetery took shape in a corner of the country that was, in its day, one of the last frontiers of the American West. This is the far northwest edge of Texas, hard against the New Mexico line, and in the early twentieth century it was still being settled in the wake of the giant ranches that had first claimed the plains.
The ground itself is tied to that ranching era. The land was deeded for the cemetery in 1908 by the company that had financed the XIT Ranch — the sprawling cattle operation created when Texas traded millions of acres of Panhandle range to build its state capitol. As that empire gave way to farms and towns, the new community of Farwell needed the ordinary institutions of settled life, and among the first was a place to bury its dead.
So Olivet stands at a hinge in time: born as the cattle kingdom was fading and family settlement was taking hold. Its earliest graves reach back into the rough, dangerous days of the open range, while later ones belong to the ordered farming community that followed.
People & events
The cemetery's land came through the Capitol Freehold Land and Investment Company — a firm incorporated in England in 1884 to finance the XIT Ranch — which deeded the ground to James M. Hamlin in November 1908. That English money behind a Texas cattle operation is a reminder of how global the investment in the American West truly was.
Among the earliest to be buried here was John Armstrong, an XIT manager and shipping agent. His death carries the violence of the range: he was shot by cattle thieves while loading stock onto rail cars at Bovina. His grave is a marker of just how lawless and hard-edged the cattle frontier could still be, even as railroads and commerce were reaching in.
The cemetery also holds a plot that recalls a local tragedy — the Hassell family, a mother and eight children who were murdered in 1926. The marker names them and lets the sorrow stand without elaboration, and it deserves the same restraint from any visitor. Alongside these stories lie roughly a hundred identified burials across the ten-acre ground, including veterans of conflicts reaching back to the Civil War, and many names prominent on both the Texas and New Mexico sides of the line.
Its place in the American story
A frontier cemetery is one of the most honest history books a community keeps, and Olivet is a fine example. In a single ten-acre plot it gathers the whole arc of how this borderland was made: the ranching empire, the violence of the open range, the pioneer families, and the soldiers who had served the nation in earlier wars.
The English roots of the land-financing company point to a truth often forgotten about the West — that the great ranches were frequently built on foreign capital, and that the cattle frontier was wired into a worldwide economy of investment. The West was never as isolated as the legends suggest.
And because so many of the names here belong to families on both sides of the Texas–New Mexico line, the cemetery quietly testifies that human communities do not stop at state borders. Olivet holds, in one place, the pioneers who built a region that a surveyor's line would later divide.
If you visit
Olivet Cemetery lies near Farwell in Parmer County, right at the western edge of Texas where the plains meet the New Mexico boundary. The setting is wide and quiet, the kind of open prairie stillness that suits a place of remembrance.
Walk the ground slowly and read the stones. The older markers carry you back to the raw days of the cattle range and the first settlers, while the presence of veterans reminds you that men who had served in the nation's earlier wars ended their lives out here on the frontier. Treat the Hassell plot with the gentleness the story asks for.
As Farwell's first cemetery, this is a natural stop for anyone tracing the pioneer history of the Texas–New Mexico borderlands. Give yourself time to take in the sweep of it — a small patch of earth that holds an empire's ranch hands, its founding families, and its sorrows all together.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · John Armstrong
- · James M. Hamlin
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Near Route of the Coronado Expedition
Farwell, TX
In 1540 Francisco Vazquez de Coronado led one of Spain's first great expeditions into the North American interior, chasing rumors of cities rich in gold. His route carried the party across the Texas Panhandle near present-day Parmer County before he pushed north with a small band. The fabled Quivira he reached in 1541 proved to be an ordinary Native American village, and the disappointed expedition turned back toward Mexico.
Parmer County
Farwell, TX
Parmer County was created in 1876 and named for Martin Parmer, the 'Ringtailed Panther' who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence. Most of its land was first held by the vast XIT Ranch, granted to the Capitol Syndicate in payment for building the Texas Capitol, and in 1890 the county's population numbered only 70. When the railroad arrived in 1904 and the syndicate began selling land, settlers streamed in to carve out small farms, and Farwell became the county seat.
Farwell, Texas
Farwell, TX
The town of Farwell honors brothers John V. and C. B. Farwell, Chicago investors who financed the construction of the Texas State Capitol in the 1880s. In exchange for building the grand pink-granite statehouse, the syndicate received three million acres of Panhandle land — the empire that became the legendary XIT Ranch, founded in 1885. The town at the New Mexico line grew up on the edge of that vast holding.
Oklahoma Lane
Farwell, TX
Carved from the storied XIT Ranch, the Oklahoma Lane community took its name from the many settlers who arrived from that neighboring state beginning around 1915, when the Capitol Reservation Lands Company started selling off ranch land. Farming and ranching families streamed in, and with children came schools — Sunnyside and Knox, later merged into the Oklahoma School. Methodist and Baptist churches and a 1925 cemetery rounded out community life.