Speights-Pratt Cemetery
Milam, Sabine County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Rebecca Hopkins Speights (b. 1796) arrived in Sabine County in 1842 as a widow with four sons and a daughter. She owned about 250 acres including this site, which became a cemetery with her burial in 1857. Sited near the Speights’ home, the cemetery was actually on land granted to Mathew Arnold Parker, a Texas revolution veteran and first chief justice (county judge) of Sabine county. Joshua M. Hopkins Speights, buried here, was a state legislator and county judge. He and Hampton Pratt were among the first merchants in Hemphill. Of fifty-one marked graves, more than half bear the Speights surname. An unknown number of unmarked graves include Speights family slaves. The Speights-Pratt Cemetery Association manages this historic burial ground.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Widowed Rebecca Hopkins Speights arrived in Sabine County in 1842 with five children and eventually some 250 acres, part of which became a cemetery upon her burial in 1857. The ground was tied to prominent early Texans — revolution veteran and first county judge Mathew Arnold Parker, and legislator and merchant Joshua M. Hopkins Speights. Of its fifty-one marked graves, more than half are Speights, and an unknown number of unmarked graves hold enslaved members of the family's household.
Why it matters
The burial ground preserves both the founding families of early Texas and the enslaved people whose unmarked graves testify to slavery's presence on the frontier.
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Related people
- · Rebecca Hopkins Speights
- · Mathew Arnold Parker
- · Joshua M. Hopkins Speights
Themes & tags
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