Truby Cemetery
Anson, Jones County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Several gravestones at this site attest to its use as a burial ground by nearby settlers before members of the Daughtrey family, early area ranchers, formally deeded these three acres for cemetery use on December 4, 1906. The oldest marked grave is that of infant Madge S. McCargo (1897-1898), granddaughter of pioneer Baptist minister George W. Scarborough and his wife Martha, who settled on this land in 1877. Caring descendants erected a fence in the 1950s and a flagpole in 1998 out of respect for the pioneers, veterans, and citizens laid to rest here; their gravestones remain a chronicle of the heritage of Jones County.Historic Texas Cemetery – 2000
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Settlers were burying their dead on this Jones County ground before the Daughtrey family, early area ranchers, formally deeded three acres for a cemetery in 1906. The oldest marked grave is that of an infant granddaughter of pioneer Baptist minister George W. Scarborough, who settled the land in 1877. Descendants later added a fence and flagpole in tribute to the pioneers, veterans, and citizens laid to rest here.
Why it matters
Truby Cemetery is a quiet chronicle of West Texas ranching frontier, where a scattering of graves records the families who first put down roots in the county.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Jones County sits on the rolling plains of West Texas, and in the decades after the Civil War it was very much the edge of settled America. When George W. Scarborough and his wife Martha put down roots on this land in 1877, the frontier was still raw. The buffalo herds that had sustained the Plains tribes for centuries were being hunted out, the open range was giving way to fenced ranches, and small families were staking everything on ground that could reward hard work one year and punish it with drought the next.
This was the Reconstruction and Gilded Age era, when the rest of the country was building railroads, factories, and fortunes. Out here the story was quieter and harder: sod to break, wells to dig, cattle to run, and a long wait for a town, a school, or a church to arrive. Families came in ones and twos, and the distances between them were measured in hours on horseback.
A cemetery like this one tells you exactly how young that settlement was. There was no established burial ground because there had barely been time to establish anything. People buried their dead where they lived, on the land they were still fighting to hold, long before anyone drew up a formal deed.
People & events
The heart of this place is a small headstone. The oldest marked grave belongs to Madge S. McCargo, an infant who lived only from 1897 to 1898 — a granddaughter of the pioneer Baptist minister George W. Scarborough and his wife Martha. That single fact carries an enormous amount of frontier life inside it. A preacher who had come to settle and to serve, a family that had grown into a second and third generation on the same ground, and the heartbreak of losing a baby before her first full year — a grief that was tragically common in a time and place with little medicine and no nearby doctor.
Burials were happening on this ground before it was ever officially a cemetery. Neighbors laid their people to rest here first, and only later, on December 4, 1906, did the Daughtrey family — early ranchers in the area — formally deed three acres so the burial ground could belong to the community rather than to one family's fence line.
The care didn't stop with the founders. Descendants came back across the decades to tend it: a fence raised in the 1950s and a flagpole added in 1998, both put up out of respect for the pioneers, veterans, and everyday citizens resting here. That long chain of remembrance — great-grandchildren honoring people they never met — is its own quiet story of loyalty to a place.
Its place in the American story
America's westward expansion is usually told through big names and dramatic events, but its truest record is written in small country cemeteries like this one. The nation grew because ordinary families — a minister, a rancher, their wives and children — were willing to gamble their lives on unproven land. The graves here are the receipts for that gamble.
There's a reason Texas formally recognizes places like this as Historic Texas Cemeteries. A cemetery is often the single most durable record a rural community leaves behind. Homesteads burn or fall in, businesses vanish, but the stones remain, and from them you can reconstruct who came, when they arrived, how long they lived, and which families intertwined. This ground is, in the words of the marker, a chronicle of the heritage of an entire county.
It also captures a distinctly American pattern: land that was used before it was owned on paper, community that formed before institutions existed, and memory that was maintained by volunteers rather than by any government. That grassroots stewardship — people simply deciding their ancestors deserved a fence and a flag — is how much of rural America has preserved its own past.
If you visit
Come here for the quiet. This is not a grand monument but a working country cemetery on the West Texas plains, and its power is in its plainness — the big sky, the wind moving over the grass, and rows of stones that have watched more than a century of it.
Walk the older section slowly and read the dates. Look for the oldest marked grave, the resting place of an infant from the very end of the 1890s, and let the math of those short years sink in. Notice the flagpole and the fence, and remember they weren't part of the original ground — they were added by descendants generations later, an act of respect you can still feel standing there.
If you're building a road trip through West Texas, treat a stop like this as a palate cleanser between bigger attractions. It takes only a few minutes, it costs nothing, and it will change how you see the whole region: every ranch and small town you pass grew out of families exactly like the ones buried here. Be respectful, leave the stones as you find them, and give yourself a moment to imagine the community that gathered on this spot when there was almost nothing else around for miles.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · George W. Scarborough
Themes & tags
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