Suggs Cemetery
Hearne, Robertson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Calvin A. Suggs and his family came to Texas from Georgia in the late 1860s. They settled in this area about 1868, and Suggs purchased eighty acres of land. This cemetery was established on Suggs' land and has served as the principal burial ground for the Black Jack community for over a century. The oldest documented grave here is that of Jera William McWilliams, who died on October 11, 1880. Many pioneer settlers of this area are interred in the Suggs Cemetery in marked and unmarked graves. It serves as a reminder of the area's early heritage.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Calvin A. Suggs brought his family from Georgia to this stretch of Robertson County around 1868, in the uncertain first years after emancipation, and set aside part of his eighty acres as a burying ground. For more than a century it has been the principal cemetery of the Black Jack community, its oldest marked grave dating to 1880. Beneath its marked and unmarked stones lie the pioneer settlers — many of them African American — who built a rural community out of Reconstruction-era Texas.
Why it matters
Historic Black cemeteries preserve the memory of freedpeople and their descendants who established lasting communities after slavery, a chapter of American history too often left in unmarked graves.
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Related people
- · Calvin A. Suggs
- · Jera William McWilliams
Themes & tags
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