Squire Cruse

Livingston, TX

Andrew and Mary McKee came to Texas in 1845 and bought this land in 1854; when Mary died in childbirth in 1857 she became the first person laid to rest here, at a spot she is said to have marked herself. By the close of the Civil War the burial ground served the whole Midway community. Its graves hold pioneer settlers and their descendants, former slaves, and veterans of American wars from the Civil War to Vietnam.

Wiergate, TX

This piney-woods burial ground began with the grave of Joseph Lane around 1850, and in 1853 his son set aside a small plot that grew over the decades into a two-acre family and community cemetery. Among those buried here is James Persinger Hardy, who served with Kentucky volunteers in the Army of the Republic of Texas in 1836 and later as a Newton County commissioner. Wrought iron, a handful of inscribed stones, and rows of iron-ore rocks marking unknown graves recall the settlers who wrested their living from the surrounding forest.

Newton, TX

Newton Cemetery has served this Newton County seat since it was formally set aside in 1903, though its first burial came in 1864 when landowner G.W. Robinson laid his young son to rest. After Robinson's death the land passed to another resident who donated it as a public burial ground. Its graves hold veterans of the Civil War and both World Wars, Korea, and Vietnam, and since 1943 a citizens' association has cared for the site.

Newton, TX

Sam and Mary Herrin homesteaded 106 acres in the Fawil community of the East Texas piney woods, raising eleven children to adulthood and setting aside an acre for a family burial ground. The earliest graves, from 1911 and 1912, belong to a granddaughter and a daughter, and most of the dozens interred here descend from that pioneer couple. The surrounding community once supported three churches, a school, a plywood mill, and a store.